LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

©l|ap. (Bitpijrtgl|t ^o.-UrO 

Shelf U'H^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The iNTERNATlON^fliL 

Home Def5\rtment A550ciation. 



PRESIDENT. 

W. A. Duncan, ph.d., Boston, Mass., or Syracuse, N. Y. 

EDITOR. 

M. C. Hazard, ph.d., Boston, Mass. 

SECRETARY. 

W. H. Hall, West Hartford, Conn. 

TREASURER. 

W. N. Hartshorn, Boston, Mass. 

VICE-PRESIDENTS. 

Bishop J. H. Vincent, D.D., Buffalo, N. Y. 
J. B. Baton, ll.d., Nottingham, England. 
A. M. Clark, d.d., Prague, Austria. 
Chas. Waters, Esq., London, England. 

F. F. Belsey, Esq., London, England. 
J. A. Worden, D.D., Philadelphia, Pa. 
Alfred Day, Toronto, Ont. 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 

S. B. Capen, Boston, Mass. 
J. L. Hurlbut, D.D., PlaJnfield, N. J. 
C. R. Blackall, d.d., Philadelphia, Pa. 
William Reynolds, Peoria, 111. 

A. F. Schauffler, d.d., New York, N. Y. 

B. F. Jacobs, Chicago, 111. 

G. M. Boynton, d.d., Boston, Mass. 

state SECRETARIES. 

Illinois — W. B. Jacobs, Chicago. 
Indiana — W. C. Hall, Indianapolis. 
Manitoba — W. H. Irwin, Brandon. 
Massachusetts — J. N. Dummer, Boston. 
Missouri — Rev. S. I. Lindsay, St. Louis. 
New Jersey — Rev. E. M. Fergusson, Trenton. 
New York — Timothy Hough, Syracuse. 
Iowa — Mattie M, Bailey, Shenandoah. 
Tennessee — J. Park Wakely, Nashville. 
Quebec — J. Donald Frazer, Montreal. 
Ohio — Dr. Ford, Steubenville. 
Kentucky — Miss Mamie F. Huber, Louisville. 

Verm?nT-'^''^~ ^ I. J. Miller, White River Junction, Vt. 
Michigan — WiUiam Reynolds, Owasso. 
Pennsylvania — Rev. C. J. Kephart, Annville. 
New Brunswick — Rev. A. Lucas, Sussex. 
Louisiana — E. P. Mackie, New Orleans. 




WM. A. DUNCAN, Ph.D. 



HOME CLASSES 



OR THE 



HOME DEPARTMENT 



SUNDAY-SCHOOL 



Its History, Purpose and Plan, Organization, Methods, 
Requisites and Difficulties. 







BY 

M. C. HAZARD, Ph.D. 




I 

ICAGO 



Congregational ^unliis^Scfjaol anti ^ublisfjing ^octets 



^^: 



s-ii 






Copyright, 1895, 
By Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 027436 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. History of the Home Department 7 

1. The Origin 9 

2. First steps in introduction lo 

3. Development 20 

4. Adoption 36 

II. The Purpose of the Home Department 45 

1. Stated 45 

2. Illustrated 58 

III. The Organization of the Home Department . . 70 

1. The Superintendent 73 

2. Visitors 80 

3. Classes 85 

4. Lesson Helps 87 

IV. The Home Department and the Pastor .... 88 

1. How the Home Department can help the Pastor ... 88 

2. How the Pastor can help the Home Department . . 91 

V. Methods of the Home Department 98 

1 . International and National 98 

2. State 99 

3. County loi 

4. The Town 102 

5. The Sunday-school 104 

VI. Home Department Requisites 112 

VII. Difficulties of the Home Department . . . .127 

1. In Starting 128 

2. In Continuing 136 



■:^\uw 



nutiiinuil 



^ KOKC CLASS 



DZP^V^irM* 



Dh.W. nj)r Ar?ix 




^i^ 



r 



/^^^y^-^'^^:, 



r;9'' 



HOME CLASSES 

OR 

THE HOME DEPARTMENT 



I. 

HISTORY OF THE HOME DEPARTxMENT. 

The Home Class idea, out of which the Home De- 
partment has grown, had its birth in the same year with 
that of the Christian Endeavor movement. The latter 
had its inception in February of iS8i, and the Home 
Class in June of that year. The Christian Endeavor 
Society was formed for the purpose of training young 
people into Christian life and service ; the Home Class 
was originated to promote the study of the Bible outside 
of the Sunday-school by individuals and in the home. 
Both movements have proved to be powerful evangeliz- 
ing agencies. 

The thought embodied in the Christian Endeavor 
Society was the quicker to catch public attention and to 
secure approval. It did so because the minds of many 
had been dwelling upon the necessity of doing some- 
thing to stimulate Christian life in the young, to bring 
them into closer connection with the church, and to 
develop them into earnest and successful workers for 
the Master. Therefore, when Father Endeavor Clark, 



8 The Home Department 

as his constituency delight to call him, seized upon the 
Endeavor idea and made use of it with such good 
results, others were ready to take it up and adopt it. In 
seven years after the organization of the first Young 
People's Society of Christian Endeavor, the multiplica- 
tion of societies was such, and their demands for infor- 
mation, guidance, and help were so great, that Dr. Clark 
felt compelled to give up his pastoral work that he might 
devote his whole time to fostering and propagating the 
Christian Endeavor idea. The Home Class suggestion 
was of slower growth, because people had not been 
thinking along that line. The soil had not been pre- 
pared for it. It had to win its way against a natural 
incredulity as to its practicability. It was believed that 
the Sunday-school was already accomplishing all that it 
could in the direction of Bible study. It was feared by 
some that, if the Home Class should succeed at all, it 
would be at the expense of attendance upon the Sunday- 
school itself. Therefore it had to demonstrate not only 
its feasibility but also its harmlessness. It began to 
grow with considerable rapidity when it not only suc- 
ceeded in doing this, but actually proved itself to be a 
positive reinforcement to the main school. The expan- 
sion of the movement, though somewhat tardy in coming, 
has of late years become almost as phenomenal as that 
of the Christian Endeavor Society. It has been recom- 
mended by many county and state Sunday-school asso- 
ciations ; it has been approved in the summer Sunday- 
school assemblies ; it has received the unqualified en- 
dorsement of the last World's Sunday-school Conven- 
tion ; it has been adopted by nearly every evangelical 
denomination ; it is to be found in successful operation 



History of the Home Department, 9 

not only in the United States, but also in England, 
Canada, Bohemia, and India. 

The genesis of any great*movement is always interesting 
and of value. This is peculiarly so. As in the case of 
the Christian Endeavor Society there is no doubt as 
to its originator. What Dr. Clark is to that organization 
Dr. W. A. Duncan is to this. 

I. The origin. — While attending a district Sunday- 
school convention in New York State, in the spring of 
1 88 1, a woman who had a veranda class expressed to 
Dr. Duncan her regret that her pastor showed no sym- 
pathy with her work. Living among those who did not 
attend Sunday-school on account of the distance to the 
church, she had gathered a class of boys and girls upon 
a porch for the study of the Sunday-school lesson, and 
walked about three miles every Sunday to teach it. It 
was her idea that she was doing the work of the Sunday- 
school fully as much as any teacher attending its sessions, 
and that her efforts should receive the same recognition 
and help accorded to other teachers. But these were 
withheld because she was not in the same building at the 
same time with the other teachers, instructing her class 
under the personal supervision of the superintendent. 
At that date there had been no conception of extending 
the work of the Sunday-school outside of the church 
building. In the thought of every one the Sabbath- 
school and the place where it was held were as inseparable 
as the warp and woof of a woven fabric. No class could 
be a part of the school which was not with the school 
during its sessions. 

Instantly Dr. Duncan saw large possibilities in extend- 
ing the boundaries of the Sunday-school to the farthest 



lo The Home Department 

reach of the parish. Probably his connection with the 
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle movement had 
prepared him for such an extension, for in that he had 
seen what could be done in promoting reading and study 
by the formation of small local circles, and even among 
individuals, connected with and acting under the direc- 
tion of the Chautauqua Assembly. Remembering his 
mother's class in the home, where he had received his 
formative Christian training, he was moved to sympathy 
with this woman in her isolation in her laudable work 
and experienced not a little indignation on account of 
its lack of recognition. 

This special case suggested the Home Class, as dis- 
tinct from the Sunday-school class, but which, like the 
latter, should be regarded as an integral part of the 
Sunday-school. 

II. First steps in introduction. — In carrying 
out the idea which thus had occurred to him. Dr. 
Duncan made use in New York State of : — 

I. The 'Woman's Sunday-school Mission Aid 
Association. Believing that what this one woman with 
her veranda class was doing, hundreds of other women 
might do also. Dr. Duncan conceived of a woman's 
organization which, in connection with the New York 
State Sunday-school Association, should stimulate similar 
work all over the state. His thought was that in every 
county women should be appointed whose duty it should 
be systematically to canvass the neglected districts, bring- 
ing into Sunday-school all who could be gathered in, 
establishing new Sunday-schools where they were needed, 
and forming home or neighborhood classes where neither 
could be done. Women were thought of for this work 



History of the Home Department. il 

rather than men because of their comparative leisure, 
their greater tact and sympathy, and their readier access 
to all sorts of homes. 

Talking over the scheme with Rev. A. F. Beard, d.d., 
then pastor of a Congregational church in Syracuse, and 
now a secretary of the American Missionary Association, 
the latter was so impressed with the importance and 
fv.'asibility of the suggestion, that he advocated it in a 
paper read at the annual convention of the New York 
State Sunday-school Association, held June 7-9, at Cort- 
land. During his remarks Dr. Beard said : '^ She who 
lives in the neighborhood of a neglected district, and 
who will form a Sunday-school in the schoolhouse, or in 
the parlor, or kitchen of some friendly house, may not 
measure what will eventuate." Dr. Duncan, speaking in 
the same convention in support of the plan of forming 
such an organization, remarked : *' Where there is a 
parlor, a kitchen, an empty room in the barn; where 
there is a tree which God has made to throw shade upon 
the earth ; where there is a Christian mother who loves 
her sons and daughters; where there is a Christian sister 
who feels like doing something for the Master, — there 
these boys and girls can be gathered in and taught about 
Jesus." 

As a result of this advocacy, there was formed the 
Woman's Sunday-school Mission Aid Association, '' that 
through correspondence and local visitation the Chris- 
tian women of the state may be enlisted in mission 
Sunday-school work." Mrs. Allen Butler, of Syracuse, 
was chosen as General Secretary. 

It will be observed that the expression of the purpose 
of the Association does not conform in terms to the 



12 The Home Department 

special work which Dr. Duncan had in mind for it. But 
the formation of Home Classes was only one of the 
things which it was organized to do, and whether it 
should be one of the chief things or not could be de- 
termined only by experiment. The idea of the Home 
Class was as yet too new and untried to be presented 
as the one around which such an organization should 
- crystallize. To have urged that as the principal motive 
for the institution of such a body would have been to 
defeat it. In time this Woman's Association proved to 
be just the effective agency for propagating the Home 
Class idea which Dr. Duncan hoped that it would be. 

It should be further noted that so far the conception 
was only of neighborhood classes. Whether the class 
was to be held in the schoolhouse, the parlor, the 
kitchen, the barn, or under the spreading green tree, it 
was not the Home Class as now understood, but a class 
made up of the children of a neighborhood, meeting 
together under the guidance of a teacher for the study 
of the Sunday-school lesson. While the present con- 
ception of the Home Class does not ignore the value of 
such a gathering (in fact there are many such in exist- 
ence, doing invaluable work), it is not regarded as an 
essential feature. Now the members of a Home Class 
may never meet for associated study. 

The classes then had in mind were for the young. The 
talk was all about gathering in the children. By children, 
as appears from explanatory remarks, were meant those 
between the ages of six and twenty- one. The aim was to 
reach the neglected boys and girls. The conception was 
not as yet sufficiently enlarged to cause the workers to 
consider the neglected and neglecting men and women. 



History of the Home Department. 13 

2. Sunday-school L#eaflet No. 6. At the meeting 
of the State Sunday-school Association referred to, Dr. 
Duncan was chosen chairman of the State Executive 
Committee. This choice placed him in a position 
where he could forward his plan to the best advantage. 
Having now the power, he moved rapidly towards the 
realization of his idea. By the middle of June, 1881, 
he published the leaflet indicated, having the caption 
''Home Sundav-school Classes." It was only 4}^xj 
inches and was printed on but one side. In this docu- 
ment Dr. Duncan clearly stated the nature and purpose 
of the classes mentioned. The plan as there outlined is 
important as showing his conception of what they were 
to be and to accomplish. Two paragraphs are quoted 
here, that his idea at that time may be seen. After 
speaking of the vast numbers of unreached children in 
the state of New York (800,000), and after referring to 
the mistaken thought that all efforts to reach them must 
be confined to a church building, he says : — 

One method of reaching these children has been by the 
organization of neighborhood schools ; but in many sections 
there are not children enough to make a school. In such 
localities, and wherever possible, it is proposed to organize 
Sunday-school classes, either at the home of the teacher, or 
in any place where the children can meet together. These 
classes are to be recognized as members of the church school 
to which the teacher may belong, and the class record is to 
be entered upon the books of the school. 

The class books, lesson papers, singing books, and Bibles 
are to be furnished by the parent school ; the hour of service 
one thai; will be most convenient for the teacher ; the scholars 
to be urged to attend the church services and school as often 
as convenient, and to be invited to take part in all its enter- 



14 The Home Department 

tainments. The exercises of the class should be of such a 
character as would best interest the scholars, and lead them 
to Christ and the Christian church. 

Again attention is called to the fact that so far the 
Home Class really means a neighborhood class personally 
taught in some home. The term was used because it 
was supposed that the neighborhood classes would be 
- more often taught in homes than in schoolhouses. The 
designation, too, was relied upon to popularize the move- 
ment on account of its suggestion of the informality, 
freedom, and sociability of a class taught in the atmos- 
phere of the home. It was believed that a class with 
that title would be more attractive than one called a 
Neighborhood Class, and that it would be apt to hold 
together longer. This choice of terms, apparently for- 
tuitous, was a happy one, for if the other had been 
employed the movement never would have been heard 
from to any great extent. The neighborhood class 
idea as a movement failed, though a large and increas- 
ing number of neighborhood classes are still carried on 
and are doing effectual work ; but the title of Home 
Class led to the development of something better. 

But it should be remarked that the main principle 
which characterizes the Home Department now was put 
forth with emphasis in that leaflet — the recognition of 
home classes as a part of the Sunday-school. Without 
that recognition there could be no Home Department ; 
that is the vital part of its constitution. In Leaflet 
No. 6 the effort was first made to extend the domain 
of the Sunday-school far beyond the walls which had 
hitherto shut it in. 

3. The International Sunday-school Conven- 



History of the Home Department. 15 

tion. As has been stated, Leaflet No. 6 was published 
in the middle of June, 1881. The Third International 
Sunday-school Convention was to meet in Toronto June 
22-24, and at that gathering there would be a good oppor- 
tunity to make the new plan widely known. Rev. Jere- 
miah Zimmerman, d.d., pastor of the First English 
Lutheran Church, Syracuse, N. Y., was a delegate to 
that body, and at the instance of Dr. Duncan he took 
with him copies of that leaflet for distribution. From 
the minutes of that convention it does not appear that 
he presented the scheme orally, but that he did so effec- 
tively is manifest from its being twice referred to by Dr. 
Vincent, who credited it at the time to Mr. Zimmerman 
himself. " A very great effort," he said, " has been made 
to reach the people dwelling in cities, towns, and villages, 
but as yet no effort has been made to reach the thou- 
sands of children on farms and in out-of-the-way places. 
He [Mr. Z.] suggests the formation of home classes, 
little parlor classes, meeting together where they cannot 
have a Sunday-school. Let a good man or woman get 
together five or six or eight or ten little people and teach 
them the Word of God ; and where we have one Sunday- 
school now, let us have ten of these little classes." 

Writing to Dr. Duncan under date of December 1 7, 
1894, Dr. Zimmerman says: '^Well do I remember, 
when a delegate to the Third International Sunday- 
school Convention in Toronto, Canada, that before going 
you gave me a large bundle of literature on the subject 
[Home Classes] which you had prepared, and requested 
me to bring your plans before the convention. This was 
in 1 881, and on the twenty-second of June, the first 
day of the convention, I presented your plans to the 



1 6 The Home Department, 

president, Hon. S. H. Blake, who gave it his hearty 
endorsement and spoke of Christ coming tQ the homes 
of people with the Bread of life. Various references 
were made to the Sunday-school in the home. ... It is 
pleasant to remember having acted in this humble 
capacity. When we recall the grand development of 
that idea and its vast growth, we are taught again not to 
despise the day of small things." 

The reception given to the plan in the International 
Convention greatly stimulated its author. What was 
endorsed by so experienced and noted a Sunday-school 
man as Dr. Vincent he felt must be indeed valuable. 
Hence he threw himself into the work of pushing it with' 
more strength than ever. Dr. Duncan's next step was 
the publication of : — 

4. A Sunday-school newspaper. This was a 
small four-page paper, the object of which was to push 
Sunday-school work in all its phases throughout the state, 
and, specifically, to urge forward efforts along the new 
lines. In the prospectus appearing in its first issue, Sep- 
tember I, 1 88 1, it says : '^ In each issue will be presented 
plans for the organization of town associations, neighbor- 
hood Sunday-schools, home study Sunday-school classes, 
and the development of the work of the Woman's Aid 
Board organized at Cortland." It is hardly needful to say 
that this paper was of great service in making known the 
new plans and securing their adoption. Twenty thousand 
copies were printed the first year and distributed all over 
the state. Through its column? the Woman's Mission 
Aid Association and " Home Sunday-school Classes " 
soon became familiar terms to Sunday-school workers, and 
neighborhood classes were organized in many localities. 



History of the Home Department. 17 

Incidentally it may be stated that this was the first paper 
started as an aid to the work of a State Sunday-school 
Association. It since has had many imitators. 

The religious and secular papers of the state also were 
pressed into service, in so far as the sympathy of their 
conductors would permit. Thus, in its issue for Septem- 
ber 22, i88r, there appeared in The Northern Christian 
Advocate of Syracuse, New York, an article by Mrs. Allen 
Butler, General Secretary of the Woman's Mission Aid 
Association, referring to the Home Class movement as 
" A Sunday-school Extension Society." The article was 
a column long — a column of the old-fashioned length. 
In it Mrs. Butler refers to the work of the Woman's 
Association, but lays the emphasis upon that part of it 
which relates to neighborhood classes. '^ Some neighbor- 
hoods," she says, '' have not children enough for a 
school, but ^v^ or six are worth saving. These are to 
be gathered into ^ Home Sunday-school Classes,' that 
some Christian women who cannot be teachers in church 
schools, because of their distance from them, will be 
willing to take into their homes. These classes are to 
be counted as classes of the church school, from which 
they will receive lesson papers and other suppUes, and 
when entertainments of any kind are given for the 
benefit of the school, these classes will be invited, and 
eventually they will prove part of the school." From 
this it appears that the Woman's Association had 
heartily taken up the Home Class plan, and was push- 
ing the organization of neighborhood classes with all 
its power. That power promised to be considerable, 
for already women were being enlisted in its work, and 
the secretary was making determined effort to get a 



1 8 The Home Department 

woman secretary for each county and for each town in 
the county. 

But the neighborhood class had too many Hmitations 
to grow into a great movement. It could not be carried 
on except by some one personally present every Sabbath. 
In each case there must be found one near enough who 
had the consecration, zeal, and teaching abihty to gather 
and hold such a class — and such a one in godless neigh- 
borhoods was by no means always easy to discover. 
Again, there was a division of thought as to the can- 
vassing, some affirming that a thorough canvass of the 
state once every five years was often enough, while 
others advocated a canvass for each year. A five-year 
canvass was good for not much more than the correction 
of the faulty statistics of the previous four years, while 
a yearly canvass, in addition to getting reliable statistics, 
certainly would stir up each neighborhood so much 
oftener that there was hope of its keeping some Sunday- 
schools alive which without it were likely to die. The 
Woman's Aid Board planned to have a canvass every 
year. But even that was not often enough to hinder the 
Home Classes from disintegrating. On the part of those 
who conducted them there was not that feeling of 
responsibihty which rested upon those who had to do 
with the larger numbers gathered into a school. They 
gave up their classes more easily. A lack of interest on 
the part of their scholars, a dwindhng away of the class, 
a few Sundays of bad weather and bad going, a sense of 
unfitness, an inability to control on one or two occasions, 
a Sunday disinclination to work — any little difficulty, in 
many cases, would cause the teacher to give up the 
neighborhood class. It needed an element of continued 



History of the Home Department, 19 

personal supervision, contact, and encouragement from 
the main school which as yet it lacked. 

It is not surprising to note in an examination of the 
New York State Sunday-school Association reports for 
1882 and 1883, that but little progress was made in the 
Home Class movement. Mrs. Butler reports in 1882 
organizations of the Woman's Aid Board in nineteen out 
of the sixty counties of the state. In only one of the 
nineteen reports is there any reference to a Home Class, 
and that is to a single Home Class organized in connec- 
tion with Good Will Sunday-school at Syracuse, of which 
Dr. Duncan himself was the founder. Throughout the 
convention the work of the Woman's Aid was fervidly 
praised, but little was said about its doing anything for 
Home Classes. Dr. Duncan himself did not refer to 
them. Possibly the subject was more fully ventilated in 
the side conference held by the Woman's Aid Associa- 
tion, a report of which was not made. That something 
had been done in planting neighborhood classes by the 
Woman's Association, however, is made evident by the 
passage of a resolution at a conference of that body 
during the sessions of the State Sunday-school Associa- 
tion, approving " the ^ Home Class ' system as eminently 
practical and useful, meeting a great want in this com- 
monwealth." In the report of 1883 the Home Class is 
mentioned more frequently. Dr. Duncan advocates its 
utility and explains its constitution and its relation to the 
main school, and says that hundreds of Home Classes 
are being started. Miss M. A. Beecher of Verona, 
Oneida County, refers specifically to two, one of forty 
and the other of fourteen members, and mentions one 
other which soon resulted in a Sunday-school of forty 



20 The Home Department, 

members, later increased to fifty, and adds : " That 
is the way our Home Classes go ; they all run into 
Sunday-schools." Thus it is manifest that while some- 
thing had been accompHshed, the hopes cherished at its 
inception for the Home Class plan had by no means 
been realized. 

III. Development. — In developing the Home 
Class plan the first step naturally had reference to : — 

Canvassing, The infrequency of visitation and over- 
sight was the evident weak spot. A canvass once in five 
years was of no value whatever in keeping up Home 
Classes. An annual canvass was better, but still the 
twelvemonth gap was too great. There were few Home 
Classes which would survive a year of isolation. The 
connection with the main school needed to be main- 
tained oftener than that. That fact was soon discovered, 
and through the Woman's Mission Aid Board an attempt 
was made to exercise over the Home Classes a more 
continuous oversight. Of this fact we have a record in 
a mention made of the Home Class work in "The 
Sunday-school Quarterly," edited by Dr. Peloubet, for 
the Second Quarter of 1883. This mention is on some 
accounts so important that it is here quoted in full : — 

REACHING THE MASSES BY THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 

An effort is being made in New York to canvass the whole 
state in the interests of the Sabbath schools. It is said 
that there are now in that state 800,000 children not under 
any religious influences, and a plan has been put into opera- 
tion to reach these neglected ones. 

A Woman's Mission Sunday-school Aid Association has 
been formed. A lady for Town Secretary is to be secured for 
each town, who is to cause a thorough canvass to be made. 



History of the Home Department, 21 

**The object is to bring every child, if possible, under 
Sunday-school instruction, either in a Church or Mission 
school, or in a Home Sunday-school class. 

"• The Town Secretary is expected to superintend the work 
in her own township, and report to the County Secretary. 

** Let as many helpers be secured as are needed to visit 
every part of the town. The territory should be divided 
into small districts^ and visitors appointed for each. It is 
expected that the officers of Town Associations will aid the 
Secretaries in their selection, and cooperate in this work. 
In case there be no union town organization, the Secretary 
should call a meeting of representatives from each of the 
churches, that district visitors may be appointed and 
encouraged to unite in this work. These should go to every 
house and learn : — 

** Whether the residents attend church or not — and where. 

** What children are in Sunday-school — and where. 

** How many are not in such schools, and if they are will- 
ing to go — and where. 

** Then, at another meeting, report and give to each church 
a list of those who wish to attend their church and school. 

** Where children are found too far away from any school 
to be willing to attend, then a Mission school should be 
organized if there are children enough, or some Christian 
woman living in the neighborhood should be asked to take 
them into her house and teach them as her ' Home Sunday- 
school Class.' 

*'This class should be considered a part of her church 
school, to which she will look for lesson leaves, Sunday- 
school papers, etc. 

**When there is to be an entertainment or picnic, this 
class should be invited to attend, as a part of the school. 

**The organization of these Home Classes is perhaps the 
special feature of the Woman's Mission Sunday-school Aid 
Association, and should be very prominent in the town 
canvasses. 



22 The Home Department 

** While statistics are gathered as suggested, let the main 
work of bringing every child under Sunday-school or Bible 
instruction be earnestly pressed. 

*' This is not a tnere canvass of the town to obtain statis- 
tics. Such an effort was made years ago, but failed for 
various reasons. 

** This new work maintains a continuous oversight, 

** Each of the visitors is given not more than twenty or 
twenty-five families for her field." 

Further information or reference to this plan of work 
can be obtained from Wm. A. Duncan, Esq., of Syracuse, 
N. Y., Chairman of the Executive Committee. 

The quoted parts of this statement were taken from 
a circular issued in 1882 jointly prepared by Dr. Duncan 
and Edward Danforth, respectively the chairman and 
the secretary of the New York State Sunday-school 
Executive Committee. The publication in so prominent 
a Sunday-school periodical of this method of reaching the 
neglected districts called wide attention to it, and gave 
to it a fresh and strong impulse. From it we learn : — 

1. That so early as 1882 the organization of Home 
Classes had come to be considered the special feature 
of the Woman's Aid Association. 

2. That in canvassing the work had been reduced to 
a practical basis, the suggestion being made of dividing 
the territory in each case into small districts, to each of 
which a visitor should be appointed. The districts were 
to be so divided that each visitor should not have to call 
upon more than twenty or twenty-five famihes. By this 
arrangement no visitor was given a task which from the 
first was too discouraging to be undertaken. Her field 
was not so great but that she could go over it as often as 
occasion should require. 



History of the Home Department, 23 

3. That a mere yearly canvass was not contemplated so 
much as the continuous oversight which should follow. 
Inasmuch as quarterhes were then coming to take the 
place of lesson leaves and yearly question books, the 
touch of the visitors with the Home Classes inevitably 
was determined by the necessity of supplying them once 
every three months with their lesson periodicals. Con- 
tact with them every quarter, instead of once in twelve 
months or once in five years, certainly was a great step 
forward. 

Turning back now to the New York State report for 
1883, we see the reason for the good report made from 
Binghamton. The ladies there had been operating 
under the suggestions of the circular. Telling of the 
work there, Mrs. J. H. Barnes says : — 

Our first plan was to make a thorough canvass; and we 
found in the city of Binghamton six hundred out of Sunday- 
school, of whom four hundred promised to attend. But we 
failed to find out how many did attend. We then formed 
our present plan. We invited a lady from each of the 
fourteen Protestant wSunday-schools in our city to meet with 
us and devise plans for our work. Seven ladies responded 
to this call. We adopted a constitution and by-laws, and 
divided our city into very small districts, so as not to be 
burdensome to any one. 

At the next meeting, one week after, thirty were present. 
Eleven churches have now united with us, and we have some 
seventy canvassers throughout the city. We have not 
finished the work yet, but we have visited, I think, over a 
thousand families. Each visitor has a book and is required 
to keep a list of the families, ask whether they attend church, 
how many children attend Sunday-school, and how many 
will attend, and whether they have a Bible. We found many 
without Bibles ; these we supplied from the Bible Society. 



24 The Home Department. 

If we find cases of destitution, they are reported to the 
denomination of their preference. We intend to persist 
until every child attends some Sabbath-school, etc. 

The organization thus perfected in Binghamton proved 
to be permanent. In the following year, 1884, Mrs. 
Barnes again reported as follows : — 

A thorough canvass was made last year. In the city of 
Binghamton there is the most thorough organization that 
we know of for our Woman's Mission Aid work. Each 
visitor is made responsible for her district for a year. The 
children are all known to her, so that she can have a per- 
sonal influence over them, which will go further than any- 
thing else in making the work permanent. What is true in 
other departments is true in this ; that when well inaugurated, 
there need not be a frequent recanvassing of the territory, 
but a constant watchfulness which would detect any falling 
off, and also discover newcomers in the district who need to 
be drawn within the Sunday-school circle. 

Out of this plan of canvassing was developed the 
Home Class Visitor, without whom the Home Class 
never could succeed except in occasional instances. So 
far, indeed, the Visitor was simply a canvasser, looking 
after the general interests of her Sunday-school field and 
having no especial responsibility for any Home Classes 
in it beyond stimulating both teachers and scholars. 
Just when the Visitor assumed the place she now occu- 
pies with reference to the Home Class it would be inter- 
esting to know ; on a subsequent page it may be pointed 
out. But evidently the change from a mere canvasser to 
being the conductor of the Home Class was a process 
of evolution. Inasmuch as so often the teacher of the 
Home Class could not be relied upon to continue the 



History of the Home Department 25 

work, it was in the course of things that more and more 
responsibility should fall upon the visitor. Teachers 
found it convenient to rely upon the visitors for their 
quarterly supplies for lesson helps, which were often 
delivered to the scholars themselves. The visitors 
reported the needs of the Home Classes to the superin- 
tendent ; made known to him how they were getting on ; 
looked after the interests of the Classes in regard to 
entertainments, picnics, etc. ; kept them informed of 
what was taking place in the main school ; carried the 
Class collections to the treasury of the school ; visited 
the homes of the Home Class scholars ; urged, when it 
seemed advisable, that they should join the main school, 
etc. Thus the visitor in time came into closer contact 
with the members of a Home Class than did the teacher 
herself ; and when the teacher gave up her work the loss 
was comparatively little felt, for the existence of the 
Class had ceased to devolve upon her. This evolution 
of the canvasser into the conductor of the Home Class 
was very slow, for the idea of holding a neighborhood 
class, under the term Home Ciass, taught viva voce by 
a teacher, was one which was tenaciously held. It did 
not seem possible to have a class in any other way. It 
was this conception which stood in the way of progress. 
The next step in the development of the Home Class 
idea was in the segregation of the individuals of the 
Class so that their study of the lesson by themselves 
should count the same as though there were a meeting 
of the members for the consideration of the lesson 
under the guidance of a teacher. When this actually 
occurred there was again a broadening of the domain 
of the Sunday-school. 



26 The Home Department 

The work of organizing Home Classes on the basis 
explained was still vigorously pushed. How many were 
begun in 1883-84 does not appear in the minutes of the 
New York State Sunday-school Association, held in 
Oswego June 3-5, 1884, probably for the reason that the 
Woman's Aid Board held a conference by itself during 
the sessions of the convention, the proceedings of which 
were not incorporated in the records. In the report 
made to the convention by the Woman's Board, Miss 
Mary A. Beecher referred to the usefulness of Home 
Classes, particularly in winter when many schools are 
closed, and affirmed that there were a great many Home 
Classes not connected with any Sunday-schools. 

During the spring and summer of 1884, Hon. Edward 
Danforth, secretary of the New York State Sunday- 
school Association, who had become greatly interested 
in the Home Class idea, visited the various state Sunday- 
school conventions of New England, explaining the 
purpose of the Home Class, telling what had been 
accomplished by it in New York, and urging its general 
adoption. Of the results of his efforts we can only 
guess, but must presume that they were not without some 
fruitage. It can at least be confidently said that they 
helped to advertise the plan so that they forwarded its 
final adoption. 

It has been said that the next step in the develop- 
ment of the Home Class plan was to be in the line of 
individual study of the lesson. That advance in the 
schen;ie came about through its adoption by 

The Congregational Sunday-School and Pub- 
lishing Society. This Society has its headquarters in 
Boston. It is both a publishing house and a missionary 



History of the Home Department, 27 

society. Its Publishing Department and its Missionary 
Department are entirely distinct from each other, each 
having a treasury of its own. The one department de- 
pends upon the patronage of the churches and the Sunday- 
schools in the purchase of its books and periodicals ; the 
other depends upon their gifts, which are applied to 
the planting of new Sunday-schools and to the sustaining 
of needy Sunday-schools. Having two such depart- 
ments, this Society was admirably qualified to take up 
the Home Class idea and push it into recognition and 
acceptance. Through its Sunday-school periodicals, 
especially The Pilgrim Teacher, which goes into the 
hands of ministers, superintendents, and teachers, and 
through its missionaries in the different states and terri- 
tories, it had powerful advocates for the system which 
surpassed all that hitherto had spoken for it. Its Mis- 
sionary Department, then recently reorganized, was 
rapidly growing, and was extending its work into the 
new fields of the West. Hitherto the Home Class plan 
had been merely a New York State affair ; the adop- 
tion of it by the Congregational Sunday- School and Pub- 
lishing Society made it national. It placed upon it the 
endorsement of a great denominational body, and thus 
called the attention to it cf other denominational bodies. 

Unquestionably the attention of Rev. A. E. Dunning, 
D.D., then Secretary of the Society, and now the Editor 
of The Congregationalist, was first called to it by Dr. 
Duncan through circulars and perhaps by correspond- 
ence. A letter written by Dr. Dunning in 1884 ex- 
presses his belief in the plan as being the most feasible 
one yet presented for reaching those not in the Sunday- 
school. It was not, however, adopted by the Society 



28 The Home Department 

until the spring of 1885, and then at the instance of 
Rev. S. W. Dike, ll.d., then of Royalton, Vermont, and 
now Secretary of the National Divorce Reform League. 
Dr. Dike had inaugurated what he called a Home De- 
partment in connection with his Sunday-school, for the 
purpose of securing the study of the Bible and inducing 
religious activity in the home. In his sociological studies 
Dr. Dike had been led to emphasize the home as the 
main factor of power and as the vital center, which, first 
of all, should be set right. Believing that with the 
suggestion of concurrent study of the Sunday-school 
lesson he could do something towards introducing the 
systematic study of the Bible in the home. Dr. Dike 
introduced the Home Department into his school, and 
with such success that he was led to suggest to Dr. 
Dunning the advisability of its being recommended by 
the Society to other schools and pastors. 

The suggestion of Dr. Dike commended itself to Dr. 
Dunning, and a circular was prepared setting forth the 
purpose and plan of the Home Department, and calling 
attention to its benefits in those places where it had been 
tried ; for, as the circular shows, it had been in operation 
in other schools. It says of one school in Connecticut, 
that it " has in its Home Department eight of its mem- 
bers who have removed to Utah.^' Accompanying the 
circular were the three simple means relied upon for 
starting and carrying on a Home Department — a letter, 
a pledge, and a report card to be sent to each one in a 
church parish whom it was desired to enroll as a member. 
The letter and the pledge are here reproduced so that 
their bearing upon the development of the Home Class 
plan can be readily seen ; — " 



History of the Home Department. 29 

THE LETTER. 

Dear Friend, — Aware that many are deprived of the 
privilege of the study of the Bible in the regular service of 
the Sunday-school, on account of age, infirmity, distance 
from the church, and similar reasons, our Sunday-school has 
a Home Department to aid all such, to be composed of those 
who will comply with the following conditions, which are 
made as simple as possible, in order to enlist all that we can 
in the work : — 

1. Sign and return the pledge enclosed, which asks you 
to spend not less than a half hour each Sunday in the study 
of the Sunday-school lesson for the day, w^henever you are 
able to do so. 

2. Keep for yourself, or for yourself and others of your 
family who are also members, upon the enclosed report 
card, a record of your attendance upon the study of the 
lesson, marking with x x any Sunday when you attend the 
main Sunday-school. 

3. On the last Sunday in each quarter, put the report card 
in an envelope and address it to the superintendent of the 
Sunday-school. 

Lesson Quarterlies, either the larger or smaller, will be 
furnished you (by mail or otherwise) each quarter at five 
cents each for the Senior, and four cents for Intermediate 
grades ; and they will be sent free to any who feel unable to 
pay for them. As far as we are able, you shall be made 
acquainted with the work of our school and of this depart- 
ment. 

It is hoped that this simple, easy plan will receive your 
cordial support. 

Faithfully yours 



THE PLEDGE. 



We, the undersigned, agree to join the Home Department 
of the Sunday-school, and to 



30 The Home Department 

spend at least half an hour each Sunday in the study of the 
lesson for that day, unless prevented by sickness or other 
good cause. We will continue our membership till we notify 
the superintendent of withdrawal. 



This plan was not adopted by the Congregational 
Sunday-School and Publishing Society in ignorance of 
what had been done by Dr. Duncan in New York. It 
was thoroughly aware of the essential similarity between 
the Home Class and the Home Department plans. 
Both were efforts for Bible study extension beyond the 
confines of the Sunday-school room, and each incorpo- 
rated the study thus secured as a part of the work of 
the Sunday-school itself. The Pilgrim Teacher, which 
became the organ of the Home Department, thus speaks 
of the new movement in its issue of June, 1885 : — 

The Sunday-school at Royalton, Vt., has undertaken, at 
the suggestion of Rev. S. W. Dike, a Home Department 
for those who, because of infirmity, age, distance from 
church, or other reasons, are unable to attend the main 
school. Families where such recruits are likely to be found 
are called upon by some officer or teacher in the school, and 
the plan is explained. Those who are willing to accept the 
invitation, sign a card, promising to spend at least half an 
hour each Sunday on the study of the lesson, unless pre- 
vented by good cause. A record for each Sunday is kept on 
a report card, which is sent to the superintendent at the 
close of the quarter. A special mark indicates Sundays on 
which they attend the main school. The school agrees to 
keep these members informed of matters of interest, and to 
assist them in all ways in its power. No doubt by this means 
many may be retailed in relations to the Sunday-schools who 



History of the Home Department, 31 

would otherwise be compelled to drop out altogether. The 
idea on which this plan is based has been urged for years by 
Superintendent Duncan of New York, and has been put in 
successful operation. 

It is plain, therefore, that the Home Department was 
not a new invention but a modification of the Home 
Class idea. Still it was a modification and helped to 
develop it in several important particulars. 

1. The Home Department had for its purpose the 
starting of actual home classes. It contemplated the 
study of the lesson in the home by all the members of 
the family who could be induced to join in the plan. Its 
ideal was a class composed of the members of the house- 
hold of which the father or the mother should be the 
conductor. In the circular of which mention has been 
made there was a reference to such a class, which con- 
sisted of ^' a household of eleven members, including 
four grandparents," one of whom acted as teacher. 
Hitherto the Home Class had been practically a neigh- 
borhood class, though doubtless there were some 
instances where the title absolutely applied. 

2. The Home Department provided for individual 
study of the lesson. If but one in a family signed the 
pledge card, he was by that act constituted a member of 
the Department and of the Sunday-school. 

3. The Home Department did away with the hitherto 
supposed necessity of a teacher. No reference is made 
to that of^cial in any of its documents. The members of 
the household were merely pledged to study the lesson 
a half hour each Sunday. It was left to them, without 
suggestion, to determine whether they should select some 
one to conduct their study after the usual manner or not. 



32 The Home Department 

4. The Home Department aimed to unite in home 
study of the Bible not merely the young, but also those 
of all ages. It invited the aged, the infirm, the sick, 
the non-attendants of the church, etc. The Home 
Class so far had rather appealed to the thought of 
instructing those between the ages of six and twenty-one. 

Indeed, the mistake of the Sunday-school has been 
that too generally that has been considered to be its 
mission. Its conductors have been too easily satisfied 
with securing a fair proportion of those of " school age." 
The Home Class movement was at first projected upon 
the current notion with regard to the ages of those 
whom it should reach. Now it has a wider outlook. It 
aims to induce the study of the Bible by those of every 
age, the emphasis of its address being to those of mature 
years. It is hoped that its success with them will have 
some effect in changing the constitution of the Sunday- 
school itself so that less rarely than now classes will be 
seen in it composed of the most prominent and influen- 
tial business men. The ideal Sunday-school will not be 
reached until it becomes the teaching session of the 
church and congregation. 

The two things of chief value added by the Home 
Department to the Home Class were : the segregation of 
the class, so that an individual might study by himself, 
and the broadening of its purpose so as to enlist even 
those of extreme old age. These two additions certainly 
greatly enlarged the Home Class idea and increased its 
practical utility. But it must be said that the Home 
Department never realized the supreme purpose for which 
it was formed. Except in rare instances actual family 
classes never were established. The securing of the 



History of the Home Department, 33 

study of the Bible by the family, as a family, in almost 
all instances proved to be impracticable. In those 
families where there was the disposition, the children 
already were in the Sunday-school and the parents were 
encouraging them in the study of the Scriptures. In 
other cases the parents were too indifferent or too sensi- 
ble of their own unfitness to undertake it. Thus it came 
to pass, when solicited, that they sent their children to 
the Sunday-school, if they were not already going, and 
rarely did anything more. Occasionally one of the 
parents, seldom both, would sign the pledge card for 
study of the lesson in the home. The appeal was most 
successful in securing the signatures of the aged, the 
infirm, the sick, the '' shut-ins.'* To these the opportun- 
ity came as a godsend. It was welcomed by them as a 
breath of fragrant spring air through an open window 
which long had been closed. 

Further, the Home Department plan, on this basis, 
did not largely succeed, because it did not make use of 
the continuous oversight which had been provided for in 
the Home Class system. It made no provision for sys- 
tematic visitation and overcare, but depended entirely too 
much upon the voluntary persistence of the Home 
Department student in keeping up his study and in mak- 
ing his quarterly reports. He was asked at the end of 
each quarter to make out his report and send it in, and 
then it was proposed to send him his lesson supplies by 
mail, or, if it happened to be convenient, by hand. If 
anything has been demonstrated, it is that solitary study, 
without any personal supervision or outside contact, will 
be dropped in almost every instance after the novelty 
has worn off, except in the case of the " shut-ins." 



34 The Home Department. 

Actual trial has shown that the Visitor is the most impor- 
tant feature in the Home Class plan. Without her fre- 
quent visits, encouraging and sympathizing words, reports 
of the main school, invitations to socials, notifications of 
Home Department days, etc., all of which bring the 
solitary student into touch with the main school so that 
he feels the impulse of its life — without these the Depart- 
ment would dwindle almost from the start and would 
soon die out. 

The Home Department requisites issued by the Con- 
gregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society were 
adopted by Dr. Duncan, the Field Secretary of the 
Society, and used by him throughout the state of New 
York. They put a new phase upon the Home Class 
work, and were employed by him to great advantage. 
In that state Home Departments multiplied more 
rapidly than anywhere else, for he had ajl the enginery 
of the Woman's Mission Aid Board to push them. 
And in that state, too, they succeeded better than 
in other states because they were persistently looked 
after by the canvassing visitors. And it is just here, in 
all probability, that we must trace the transformation of 
the canvasser, or visitor, into the conductor of the Home 
Class. As has been noted, the Home Department dis- 
pensed with the teacher as a necessity. All that was 
needed was that there should be some one who should 
deliver the new lesson helps required, receive the report 
cards and the contributions, impart the necessary infor- 
mation, etc. This, in Dr. Duncan's working of the 
plan, was done by visitors. In his system each visitor 
was given from twenty to twenty-five homes to look 
after. The students in those homes came to be looked 



History of the Home Department. 35 

upon by her as her class, and in time was called her class. ^ 
Thus was gradually developed a Home Class such as was 
not contemplated either in the original Home Class plan or 
in the Home Department. The Home Class, as in most 
cases now constituted, is made up of isolated members, 
with now and then a group, in different homes, looked 
after by one Visitor. A number of such classes makes 
up a Home Department. 

After several years of trial by the Congregational 
Sunday-School and Pubhshing Society on the basis 
already indicated, the writer hereof, as the Editor of 
that Society, in consultation with Dr. Duncan, reformed 
the plan of the Home Department to correspond with 
its most successful working. Recognizing the fact that 
what is everybody's business is nobody's business, it was 
decided to place the Home Department of a Sunday- 
school upon the same footing as the Intermediate De- 
partment, or the Primary Department, and assign to it a 
superintendent who should be entirely responsible for its 
conduct, subject to the higher authority of the superin- 
tendent of the school and its executive committee. The 
system of visitation was incorporated, each visitor being 
recognized as having full charge of her Home Class. 
The corps of visitors was ranked along with the teachers 
in the main school. It was recommended that quarterly 
reports of the Home Department should be made 
to the main school and that quarterly reports of all 
the departments, including their own, should be made 
to the members of the Home Department. Thus, 
and for the first time, in the documents issued, the 
aggregation of Home Classes in connection with any 
Sunday-school was constituted into a veritable Home 



36 The Home Department, 

Department. This was the full flowering of the original 
Home Class. 

It may seem strange that this final step was not sooner 
reached. The Home Department, as it now exists, 
appears to be the only rational and practicable form by 
which it can successfully be carried on. But no inven- 
tion ever is put out at first entirely perfect in all its parts. 
It does well if at the outset it demonstrates that it has 
some capability of accomplishing the purpose for which 
it was constructed. It is only by actual experiment with 
it that its actual excellencies will be proven, and its 
defects be made apparent. The Home Class simply has 
followed the universal law of development. It is suffi- 
cient praise of its originator to say that in his conception 
of extending the domain of the Sunday-school to all 
outside of its walls who would study with the school he 
seized hold of an idea which was worth perpetuating and 
developing. In that idea was the germ which has re- 
sulted in the present Home Department. 

IV. Adoption. — As has been noted, a great im- 
pulse was given to the Home Department through its 
being taken up by the Congregational Sunday-School and 
Publishing Society. A still greater impetus was adminis- 
tered to it by the final reformation of the plan just 
alluded to. It then everywhere commended itself to 
Sunday-school workers as being both desirable and 
feasible. Other denominations adopted it, asking 
permission of the Congregational Sunday-School and 
PubUshing Society to use its copyrighted requisites. ^ 
State Sunday-school associations gave to it their hearty 
recommendation. Some states appointed secretaries whc 

1 In accordance with its custom, with relation to all its publications, the 



History of the Home Department, 37 

should devote a part or all of their time towards introduc- 
ing the Home Department into the Sunday-schools. The 
International and the World's Sunday-school conventions 
endorsed it, and the International Sunday-school Execu- 
tive Committee have made the stimulation of Home 
Departments a part of its plan in its interdenominational 
work. The Home Department now has received such 
wide acceptance that it cannot but appeal for adoption 
to every Sunday-school in the land. While the percent- 
age of schools making use of it is slill comparatively 
small, the number is rapidly, even phenomenally, growing, 
and the suggestion is that soon there will not be a 
Sunday-school which pretends to be well equipped which 
will not have its Home Department. 

The growth in sentiment concerning it is well illus- 
trated in the minutes of the New York State Sunday- 
school Association for 1894. Attention has been called 
to the fact that in the reports for 1882 to 1884 there were 
but few references to Home Classes. The report for 1894 
is teeming with remarks and allusions to the Home De- 
partment. No one thing so much occupied the thoughts 
of the convention as this. There were two addresses 
on the subject, each being from one who had had 
practical experience in estabHshing Home Depart- 
ments. The Home Department was spoken of by every 

Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society copyrighted the pledge 
card, report card, letter, circular, and all other requisites for the Home Department 
issued by it. That copyright, however, has not stood in the way of the adoption 
of the plan by other denominational bodies or by Sunday-school associations, 
for upon request the Society always has freely granted the privilege of copying 
them, except in the case of individual publishers. It has been deemed best to 
refuse them, lest upon the foundation thus secured some enterprise may be 
started for the enriching of private parties. So long as the privilege remains 
with the denominations and Sunday-school associations alone, it is felt that the 
Home Department will be administered for the good of all. 



38 The Home Department 

missionary, and by nearly every district superintendent. 
One hundred and forty-one such Departments were men- 
tioned by delegates from the floor. One judicial district 
was cited by the Executive Committee as having started 
two hundred new Departments within the year, and as 
having in all one thousand Home Classes. One fifth of 
all the churches in this district was credited with having 
Home Departments. The Sixth District was reported as 
having 184 Departments with a total membership of 
7,120, divided into 800 classes with as many visitors. 
A total of 734 from fifty-two of these Departments 
were reported as transferred to the schools with which 
they were connected. Forty-nine other Sunday-schools 
had manifested their desire to organize Home De- 
partments. In the city of Brooklyn it was said that 
fifty- three Departments had been undertaken, and that 
in them there was a membership of 1,800. By means 
of a canvass in which all the denominations joined, 
twenty-seven Departments had been established in the 
town of Stockbridge, into which 1,400 members had 
been gathered. The total membership in the Depart- 
ments throughout the state was put at about 20,000. 
Manifestly a great change had taken place with regard 
to the estimate placed upon the value of this extension 
work. Probably an examination of other state Sunday- 
school reports would exhibit the same adoption of the 
Home Department, though not quite to the same degree. 
Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Missouri, and Canada come near to rivaling New 
York in its enthusiasm for the Home Department, and 
in the number of Home Departments established. 

In New York one tenth of the churches this year 



History of the Home Department. 39 

(1895) ^^^ reported as having Home Departments, con- 
nected with which are 4,500 visitors who have under 
their care 27,500 Home Class students. 

This adoption of the Home Department, however, 
has not come about by publication alone. It is the 
result of indefatigable pushing. Not only must the 
origin of the Home Department be ascribed to Dr. 
W. A. Duncan, but its success as well. He is the one 
who never has rested in forcing it upon public attention. 
Others have indeed advocated it, and to them due credit 
must be given. Dr. Dike has done much for the cause 
with pen and voice. His articles in The Pilgrim Teacher, 
Sunday School Times, The And over Review, and other 
periodicals have effectively presented the Home Depart- 
ment to many thousands of readers. In adopting it for 
the Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing So- 
ciety Dr. Dunning gave it a great uplift, and always has 
contributed to it the full measure of his wide influence. 
The success of the Home Department in Connecticut 
must be ascribed to W. H. Hall, the secretary of the 
Connecticut State Sunday-school Association, and in 
Massachusetts to J. N. Dummer, State Sunday-school 
Secretary. In New York Timothy Hough, State Secre- 
tary, Rev. E. P. St. John and Miss Grace E. Griswold 
have not labored in vain in the planting of Home 
Departments in the Sixth District. Their work has 
been wonderfully effectual. Rev. G. B. F. Hallock, of 
Rochester, N. Y., also has accomplished much, first 
in organizing a model Home Department in connec- 
tion with his church, and then in advocating the plan 
both in effective addresses and articles in religious 
journals. Time and space would fail to notice all who 



40 The Home Department 

have had an honorable part in contributing to the 
triumph of this movement. But while others have 
given it an impetus now and then, Dr. Duncan has 
been urging it all the while. By circulars, by addresses 
innumerable, by private conversations, by taxing corre- 
spondence, he has unremittingly kept the Home Depart- 
ment before the public until it has made its legitimate 
impression. He has believed in it, talked for it, written 
for it, argued for it, lived for it, as no other m.an has. 
In the most of instances those who have spoken for it 
have been inspired by him to speak. In New York he 
secured the organization of the Woman*s Mission Aid 
Association, without which that state never could have 
been covered with such a network of Home Departments. 
In 1887, ^t Chicago, in an address during its sessions. 
Dr. Duncan called the attention of the International Sun- 
day-school Convention to the merits of the Home Depart- 
ment. He secured the unanimous commendation of that 
convention for it in the meeting which was held at Pitts- 
burg in 1890. He was the author of a paper on the sub- 
ject which was read before the World's Sunday-school Con- 
vention, held in London in 1889. Through his advocacy 
at the World's Sunday-school Convention, held in St. Louis 
in 1893, the Executive Committee reported the following 
recommendation, which was unanimously adopted : — 

Your Committee desires to recognize the Home Depart- 
ment of the Sunday-school as presented by Dr. W. A. 
Duncan of New York, and to commend the same to the 
Sunday-school workers throughout the world. We believe 
the adoption of this plan will increase the membership of 
the Sunday-school and extend the benefits of the school to 
many who cannot regularly attend its sessions. 



History of the Home Department. 41 

The sessions of the International Sunday-school Con- 
vention were held at the same place, upon days just 
preceding, and that body, through his efforts, passed the 
following resolution : — 

Resolved^ That it is the sense of this Convention that the 
Home Class Department of the Sunday-school is a most 
practical and efficient method of Sunday-school work, and 
we do most heartily commend its adoption by all schools, 
and urge that all State and Provincial Associations make 
definite and systematic efforts to secure its general adoption. 

Not only has Dr. Duncan labored most effectively to 
establish the Home Department in this country, but he 
has also introduced it abroad. While on a trip to 
Europe in 1891 he presented the plan to the Executive 
Committee of the London Sunday-school Union, an 
organization of great power and influence. It approved 
itself to the Committee and now is incorporated into its 
working scheme. That fact promises a great deal with 
reference not only to popularizing the movement in 
England, but also with regard to propagating it on the 
continent, for that body has missionaries at work in 
various countries in Europe endeavoring to dissipate 
ignorance and superstition by establishing Sunday-schools 
for the study of the Bible. In England the movement 
was originally under the immediate direction of Rev. 
J. B. Baton, ll.d., of Nottingham, who has so effectively 
presented it that other Sunday-school unions are likely 
to adopt it. It has, besides, the powerful advocacy of 
Hon. F. F. Belsey, chairman of the Sunday-school 
Union, known quite well and greatly esteemed on this 
side of the water. His Home Department, connected 
with the Congregational Sunday-school at Rochester, is 



42 The Home Department 

probably one of the largest and most efficient in England. 
Already there are many Home Departments in England, 
one with a membership of two hundred being reported 
in connection with the school at Nottingham, whose 
pastor is Rev. W. Crosbie. The movement there has 
gathered such momentum now that it can hardly fail. 
It has been heard from also in France, where it has been 
introduced and where it is likely to make some headway. 
In Bohemia, through Dr. Dunca,n again, it secured a 
beginning by the labors of Rev. A. M. Clark, d.d., and 
Rev. J. S. Porter, of Prague. The latter writes of it 
that it is fast making its way. To that country it is 
peculiarly adapted, for the Austrian laws prohibit inde- 
pendent or officially ^^unrecognized" meetings, so that 
the Home Department can accomplish what cannot be 
done through the Sunday-school. In some other Euro- 
pean countries it will be found more feasible to establish 
veritable Home Classes studying the same lesson than it 
will to attempt a Sunday-school. In Bohemia a Home 
Class leaflet is published, called '' Pomucka," which goes 
to many families in Austria, Germany, Russia, and even 
America. While the Russian censor rules out all evan- 
gelical papers, somehow he allows this to pass, so that 
it is studied in the Czar's empire by hundreds of 
Bohemians in their homes. The Home Department 
has also found its way to India through Dr. J. L. Philhps 
of the London Sunday-school Union ; and thus through 
the energy and persistence of one man this form of 
evangelistic effort has just about belted the globe. 

In this country the multiplication of Home Depart- 
ments was such and the interest in the plan so great that it 
was deemed expedient by a conference of Sunday-school 



History of the Home Department, 43 

workers, representing all portions of the United States 
and Canada, held at Chautauqua in the summer 
of 1892, to organize the International Home Depart- 
ment Association. The full list of officers is given upon 
one of the initial pages. Of course there was but one 
man thought of for the presidency, and he was the one 
by whose untiring persistence the movement had become 
so successful. The purpose of this Association is to 
promote the formation of Home Departments in all 
lands in connection with evangelical Sunday-schools and 
to increase their efficiency. It is hoped that this Asso- 
ciation will prove to be a powerful agency in accomplish- 
ing the object for which it v/as formed. Already it has 
issued circulars, distributed information, published nor- 
mal class leaflets, and proposes to increase its efforts as 
the way may open and as circumstances may demand. 

At a meeting of the International Sunday-school 
Executive Committee at Chautauqua in August, 1894, 
with the International Sunday-school Field Workers, the 
Home Department came up for consideration. After a 
presentation of the facts concerning it by Dr. Duncan, 
Mr. B. F. Jacobs, of Chicago, moved that a new depart- 
ment be added to the work of the International Execu- 
tive Committee ; namely, that of the Home Department, 
and that the officers chosen in 1892 be accepted and 
recognized as the officers of the International Home 
Department Association, and that they be authorized to 
issue such circulars, letters, requisites, and addresses as 
they may deem necessary for the prosecution, unification, 
and development of the work. Mr. Jacobs urged the 
adoption of his motion, saying that he believed this to 
be one of the most important of the new movements in 



44 The Home Department. 

Sunday-school work, and that it should be pushed in all 
parts of our land and introduced into all Sunday-schools. 
The resolution was unanimously adopted, and thus the 
International Home Department Association became a 
recognized department of the International Sunday- 
school ^Association, and the Home Department itself 
was commended with all the weight of its influence 
to all Sunday-schools everywhere. The International 
Executive Committee has taken up the work thus 
assigned to it with vigor. Its Field Secretary, Mr. Wil- 
liam Reynolds, in the interdenominational meetings held 
by him in almost every portion of the country, has not 
failed to make known the aim of the Home Department 
and to press its adoption as being admirably qualified to 
introduce the study of the Word into homes, and so 
evangelize many a neighborhood. In about every con- 
vention held under the auspices of the International 
Executive Committee the Home Department has a place 
upon the program. Its consideration there insures its 
having a place in minor conventions, so that it seems 
certain that its merits will soon become known to every 
wide-awake Sunday-school worker. 

The reader now is fully acquainted with the vital facts 
concerning the genesis and development of the Home 
Department. If the story has been rightly told, not 
only has an interest been excited relative to its birth and 
progress, but also a profound impression has been made 
in regard to the evident magnitude of its future. The 
generous seed-sowing of the past, together with the 
persistent and careful cultivation which has followed it, 
is now showing its ripening results, so that the fields are 
becoming white to the harvest. 



II. 

THE PURPOSE OF THE HOME DEPARTMENT. 

I. STATED. 

From the preceding pages the readers already must 
have gathered a clear idea of the aim of the Home 
Department, or the history has been but poorly presented. 
Still it is well to compact that which has been stated in 
general terms into a definition. A definition, if properly 
made, ^ill give a clear conception of the work to be 
done, will stimulate those who engage in that work, and 
will be fruitful in suggesting expedients for its accom- 
plishment. Bearing in mind, then, the importance of 
such a statement let this definition of the design of the 
Home Department be carefully weighed : — 

The purpose of the Home Department is to secure, 
through associated effort in connection with the Sunday- 
school, a general and systematic study of the Scriptures, 

Truly, the aim is a great one. It is worthy of all the 
aid which can be given to it by any one. It is inspiring 
to think of the end to be accomplished. The Bible is 
not now generally and systematically studied. For that 
matter, it never has been. Perhaps, on the whole, it 
never has been examined with such fresh and deep 
interest as at the present time. The increased sales and 
distribution of Bibles indicate the new hold which God's 
Word has taken upon the people. More people are 



46 The Home Department 

studying it than ever before. And yet but few, compara- 
tively, are systematically poring over its- pages. The 
Book does not have the place in the home which it 
ought to have. In families generally it is an unstudied 
and almost an unread volume. The newspaper, the 
magazine, the novel crowd it out. This fact is a 
menacing one. Character is determined by reading, and 
character determines one's reading. The kind of litera- 
ture which he devours with avidity shows what one is. 
Strong character cannot be grown out of sensational 
reading. Reverence cannot be cultivated with slangy, 
"Bad-Boy'* books. Fear of God is not the result of 
the perusal of skeptical arguments. Purity is not 
encouraged by the columns of scandal which appear in 
our daily newspapers. In the reading which comes into 
the home there is much to be commended. Undeniably 
it is better than it used to be, though in negligent fami- 
lies there is still a fearful amount of demoralizing and 
destructive fiction. But where it is reasonably good 
there is needed, besides, the tonic of the Scriptures. 
Only through them will the young be brought up in right- 
eousness, purity, reverence, and the fear of the Lord. 
Wherever the Bible is studied the home is sweetened and 
purified. It is because of this fact that God gave the 
commandment : ^' And these words, which I command 
thee this day, shall be upon thine heart : and thou shalt 
teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of 
them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou 
walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when 
thou risest up " (Deut. 6 : 6, 7). In requiring his words 
to be the main theme of the household, God was but seek- 
ing to develop the ideal home. The Home Department 



The Purpose of the Home Department 47 

is but an instrument to give effect to this commandment 
of the Lord. It seeks to give the Bible its rightful place 
in the home. 

It will be observed that the definition contemplates 
the general study of the Bible. It would have been 
unwise to speak of its universal study, for that cannot be 
accompHshed prior to the dawn of the millennium. 
Whenever the Bible is devoutly searched by every one 
then indeed the triumphant reign of Christ will have 
begun. The aim of the Home Department is to bring 
about the general study of the Bible. And this means 
that it is not an effort to reach the neglected children or 
youth merely, but the men and women as well. It 
addresses itself to every member of society. No Home 
Department has done its full work until it has solicited 
every one, young and old, learned and ignorant, rich and 
poor, not already a Bible student, to join in the study of 
God's Word. 

Again it should be noted that it is aimed to secure the 
systematic study of the Bible. Systematic study is 
better than desultory or even regular reading. Better a 
half hour of close study than a dozen hours of super- 
ficial reading or reading which has merely for its object 
the perusal of the whole Bible in a specified time. It is 
not intended to minimize the value of thoughtful, medi- 
tative, devotional reading of the Scriptures. That is 
beyond estimate. But it is the last result to be obtained. 
It is the act of one who already is in communion with 
God and who desires that communion to be deeper. 
Study of the Scriptures naturally comes first, and a 
pledge to engage in it can be obtained ; the other may 
follow in due time as a result. That, then, is the thing to 



48 The Home Department 

be aimed at, with the assurance that if entered into 
earnestly it cannot but affect the heart and life. 

But study, if it be pursued, should be systematic, not 
merely as to time but as to purpose. It should aim to 
get somewhere. Hence it is that the Home Depart- 
ment has been connected with the Sunday-school. The 
lessons in it are selected by the International Lesson 
Committee, who are instructed by the International 
Sunday-school Convention to give to the world the best 
possible course of study in the Bible during the term of 
their existence. The Committee no longer are under 
orders to cover the whole Bible within a specified time, 
and hence can be more thorough in the consideration 
given to any one portion of the Scriptures when it is 
desirable to do so. Under the guidance of that Com- 
mittee a scheme is followed by which at one time one is 
studying the life of Christ in one of the gospels or in all 
of them ; at another he is tracing out the history of 
Israel, noting the overruling providences of God ; at still 
another he is following the history of the early Church as 
shown in the book of Acts, or considering the doctrines 
of Christianity as laid down in the Episdes. And in his 
study he is aided by the wonderfully full and suggestive 
lesson helps which now are issued by the different 
denominational and lesson publishing houses. Such 
study is both stimulating and attractive, and tends to 
make one search deeper. 

Lastly, the definition emphasizes associated study of 
the Bible. There is a power in the very thought of asso- 
ciation with a multitude of others. The soldier shows it. 
Conscious that he is not to be thought of as a mere unit, 
he is immensely more of a man. Again and again has it 



The Purpose of the Home Department 49 

been exhibited in the history of the International Lesson 
movement. The idea that the same lesson is being 
studied every week by millions of others in all lands has 
been a wonderful inspiration to the individual. Strenu- 
ous efforts have been made by some to get the Sunday- 
schools to take up other series of lessons, but they have 
been unwilling to break step and fall out of the ranks. 
Some have gone out for a while but have returned again, 
missing the sense of companionship with the great mul- 
titude. The Home Department makes use of this 
power. It proffers to every one the privilege of study- 
ing with those who belong to a certain Sunday-school, 
and through them, with that vast host which is engaged 
upon the same text, printed in many different languages. 
Few persons would persistently follow a course of study 
alone, but many will be led to continue if they know 
that many others are pursuing the same course with 
them. The Home Department, therefore, presses the 
thought of associated study of the Scriptures. 

In 1885 with reference to the Home Class Bishop 
Vincent said : — 

If everybody went to church and Sunday-school, a little 
school at home besides for Bible study, would be in order. 
Church and Sunday-school would be worth more because of 
the Home Bible School. The lessons would be better pre-' 
pared in advance, better recited at the time, better remem- 
bered afterward. Home would be better because of this 
fireside class — this sitting-room Sunday-school. Church 
and Sunday-school would both be worth more to everybody. 

But then not everybody does go to church and Sunday- 
school, and to him who does not go, the school at home 
becomes invaluable. He will be more likely to go. And he 
will get some good — great good — until he does go. He 



50 The Home Department. 

will get a taste at home of the precious things they have in 
the sanctuary. Sometimes people who want to go, cannot. 
Distance hinders. Weather hinders. Illness hinders. To 
those people the stay-at-home school is a blessing. It passes 
the time away swiftly and pleasantly. Its takes people ** out 
of themselves." It prevents gloominess and melancholia. 
It brings good company into the house — prophets and 
apostles, kings and angels, and the Christ himself. It opens 
great windows that give far-reaching perspectives. A 
Sunday-school at home is a great thing for a home. Let us 
have a country full of such schools. 

There are neighborhoods so far removed from church and 
Sunday-school privileges, that unless the blessings of Bible 
study and religious worship are brought to them they will 
never be reached. It is a long way to town, or to the coun- 
try church or schoolhouse. Parents are indifferent. Neglect 
falls into habit. Children grow up utterly ignorant of law 
and gospel. In such neighborhoods as these there must bQ 
home Sunday-schools. Somebody must open parlor, sitting- 
room, or kitchen and invite the neighbors in. The lesson 
leaves may be ordered, the Bible brought, a few songs 
learned, the lesson for the day studied, and papers and books 
distributed. Think of the neighborhood home schools that 
might be organized, and the amount of work that might be 
done. Think of the new element put into everyday life 
by that school — the consciences quickened, the interest in 
divine things awakened, the better literature distributed, and 
the best religious work carried on. 

The habit of taking an hour at home for personal Bible 
study, whether one goes to the places of public gathering or 
not, is of inestimable value, in the fact that it encourages 
Bible reading apart from the usual church surroundings. In 
seeming a little less publicly religious, it becomes a little 
more personally religious. We are so much inclined to make 
religious observances a thing of places and times and con- 
gregations, that to break loose now and then from the 



The Purpose of the Home Department 51 

regular order — or to break into the regular order with 
personal service of thought and prayer — will make religion 
more real. A Bible reading with song and prayer at home 
on a Sunday afternoon alone, or, better still, with friends 
and kindred, and still better if there are children to be 
enlisted, will be a service of home dedication and a sacred 
feast where the blessings of the kingdom of heaven shall be 
enjoyed. 

Dr. W. A. Duncan, of Syracuse, N. Y., an efficient 
educator, a Congregational layman, Sunday-school secretary 
for his church, and our valued associate in Chautauqua work, 
has recently developed this home school idea in several 
articles, tracts and addresses. We join hands with our 
beloved Congregational brother in this new endeavor after 
more systematic work by the family and by the neighborhood 
in the teaching and study of God's Word.^ 

The best fruits of this domestic service will be gathered 
by the family as such. We are not reverent and religious 
enough as families. The responsibility of parents for home 
instruction is in danger of being transferred to outside and 
public institutions. *' Workers" with limp-covered Bibles 
who go to conventions and talk in meetings do good in their 
way. Some of them are very useful. But they cannot do 
mother's work and father's work. And we don't want them 
to attempt it, until we have exhausted every effort to induce 
father and mother to discharge their own duties. Home has 
its own legitimate line of labor. Nowhere else can we 
expect that labor to be efficiently performed. Only when it 
is neglected is there any justification for its attempted charge 
by others. This home Sunday-school idea will tend to put 
into the hearts of parents a sense of their responsibility to 
give their hands practice and deftness in doing the duty God 
required from them. 

Let us commend the home school as a plan to be made 

* Here follows the quotation in full of Leaflet No. 6. 



52 The Home Department 

effective. Test it ! Test it at once ! Begin at your home — 
whether you, the reader of these lines, be superintendent, 
teacher, or pupil. Look up neglected children or those who 
for any reason do not go to Sunday-school. Find a place — 
somebody's kitchen or parlor. Appoint a meeting. Get 
lesson and other papers. Begin! 

Whom does the Home Department aim to reach? It 
seeks to carry the privilege of Bible study to : — 

I. Individuals. — There are many who do not wish 
to join in the study of the Scriptures. The very thought is 
irksome to them. They do not go to the Sunday-school 
because they do not enjoy going. The Home Depart- 
ment can reach them only rarely. But there are many 
who are not indifferent to the value of Bible study, who 
by force of circumstances cannot join in it with those 
who are in the Sunday-school. They may be divided 
into two classes : — 

(i) The Shut-ins, The number of these is larger 
than one would think. There are the aged and infirm. 
It is pitiful to think how much they are left to them- 
selves. In many a home they simply occupy a corner. 
They are made to feel that their days of usefulness are 
entirely gone by. It is hard so to be left out of every- 
thing. An invitation to them to become members of a 
Home Class, which is only a portion of a Home Depart- 
ment belonging to a certain Sunday-school, will in the 
most of cases indeed be welcome. They will be rejoiced 
to know that they still can be associated with others and 
have a place with them. This knowledge will do much 
to dissipate their loneliness and increase their ^elf- 
respect. Already it has brought joy and comfort to 
many. 



The Purpose of the Home Department 53 

Of course among the shut-ins are to be included the 
invalids, both recovering and incurable. Time goes 
slowly by to the sick. The tendency with them is to 
morbid dwelling upon their disease. They should be 
given something to do, not beyond their powers, which 
is clieerful and stimulating, and which will take them out 
of themselves. What can be done better for them than 
to give them a Sunday-school lesson to master? A little 
work each day upon the lesson, as strength will permit, 
and the leaden-footed moments will take on wings. 
And when the lesson quarterly is put aside there will be 
something to think upon — something which will lift the 
thoughts up towards heaven and which will make either 
living or dying more sweet. If one recovers, it will be 
to greater usefulness ; and if one dies, those lessons will 
illuminate the valley of the shadow of death. 

Then there are the mothers who are kept at home by 
their little children and their household duties. Their 
never-ending round of tasks becomes almost unbearable 
drudgery unless the heart and the mind are stimulated. 
For them the time taken for Bible study is an absolute 
gain. They will be the fresher and the stronger for it. 
When the heart is cheered, duties become light. Christ 
knew what he was saying when he invited the weary and 
the heavy laden to come unto him that they might find 
rest. By all means the mothers should become members 
of the Home Department that they may find new 
strength and cheer in Bible study. And then, too, they 
will be better mothers for so doing — kinder, more 
patient, more loving, wiser. For the sake of the chil- 
dren and the whole household they should be disciples 
of Christ. 



54 The Home Department 

Let not the servants be forgotten. The Sunday dinner 
must be prepared so that it may be ready for those 
coming home from church and Sunday-school. There 
is usually no opportunity for the servants to attend the 
Sabbath- school. Should they be shut out from all its 
privileges? The Home Department offers to them the 
opportunity of studying the Sunday-school lessons 
at such odd moments in the week as they can com- 
mand, and counting that study just as though they were 
present in the school. Thus the parlor and the kitchen 
may be associated together, and each be the better for 
the fact. 

(2) The Shut-outs, Here is another large class. The 
shut-ins are those who are unable to leave home to 
attend the Sunday-school ; the shut-outs are those who 
are kept out because of their occupations. A simple 
enumeration of some of them is sufficient. There are 
the commercial travelers, the railroad conductors, brake- 
men, engineers, newsboys, railway postal clerks, telegraph 
operators, hotel clerks, drug clerks, steamer officers and 
employees, army officers and soldiers, civil engineers and 
their assistants, boatmen, etc. etc. Many of these spend 
their Sundays in different places. They could not attend 
any one Sunday-school, even if they were inclined to do 
so. But by the arrangements made by the Home 
Department any one can be still connected with one 
special school, no matter where he may be, and be cred- 
ited with his study of the lesson as though appearing 
with the rest. Whether he is on the rail or the ocean or 
in camp he can take out his Quarterly and soon put 
himself into sympathetic connection with those at home. 
Those lessons while on the wing will do much to steady 



The Purpose of the Home Department 55 

the wanderer and to turn aside the temptations which 
especially beset him. 

To the above a third class might be added — the 
transients. They are those who are merely stopping for 
a while in a place, like students in academies and col- 
leges and the boarders in the cities. Their homes are 
elsewhere. While they are away from them they are apt 
to drop many of the good old habits which they would 
have kept up had they not come away. They attend 
church irregularly and Sunday-school not at all. It is 
the business of the Home Department to look them up 
and reestablish the old customs. 

IL The home»' — Some families are situated so far 
from church and Sunday-school that they cannot attend 
either service, or more than one. Others are in small 
communities where there are no church or Sunday-school 
privileges, or live in localities where they are isolated from 
all the benefits of society. To such families the Home 
Department is an inestimable boon. It brings them into 
connection with thousands of others. They feel the impulse 
of the spiritual life which throbs in the church and 
Sunday-school. This mental and moral stimulus is just 
what they need. It is like bringing into the home a 
telegraph wire which connects it with the great world 
without, though it may be upon some lonely mountain 
top or in some unfrequented vale. 

Again, in some places the snow is so deep during the 
winter and the cold so intense, that the Sunday-school 
has to be given up for the time. In all these cases the 
Home Department offers associated home study in the 
place of study in the Sunday-school. Each family 
becomes a Home Class, stimulated in its efforts by the 



56 The Home Department 

knowledge that there are many other classes like it, each 
one making its quarterly report to the superintendent of 
the Home Department with which it is connected, and 
receiving in turn information as to the progress made by 
the Department as a whole, and when the Sunday-school 
is in session, getting reports from the main school. 
When the Sunday-school is forced by the inclemency of 
the weather to suspend, the Home Department practi- 
cally keeps it going without dropping a lesson, so that 
in resuming not a Sunday has been really lost. That is 
much better than to have an intermission for three 
months, during which the thoughts have not been turned 
towards the Scriptures at all. In the one case it takes 
considerable time to get things going ; in the other the 
steam is all up and the train moves right off. 

So, too, in the summer when a family goes off on a 
vacation, instead of dropping out of the Sunday-school 
altogether, its members can for the time being join the 
Home Department, and thus keep in touch with their 
own home school, taking up their relationship to the 
main department again upon their return. 

Whether the whole family join in making a Home 
Class or only one member of it unite with others outside 
to make one, the study of the Bible is introduced into 
the home. If there be only a single one of the house- 
hold engaged in the systematic study of the Bible in 
connection with the Sunday-school, that is of itself no 
small gain. The knowledge of the fact and the sight of 
that regular effort at mastering the weekly Sunday-school 
lesson cannot fail of having a beneficial effect upon the 
rest of the household. Much can be hoped for where a 
pledge has been secured from but one to study the 



The Purpose of the Home Department 57 

lesson. It may — in some cases it surely will — lead to 
the study of the same lesson by others in the home, to 
the conversion of one or more or all, and to the setting 
up of the family altar. And thus the Home Department 
will in many instances make over the home. 

III. The town. — The term is used with relation, 
not to a village, but to the district which is so called. In 
early times in New England the parish of the church was 
coextensive with the town. Indeed the town meeting 
was also the parish meeting, for it was summoned to 
elect a deacon or call a minister or build a meeting- 
house, as well as to elect a member of the General Court 
or build a bridge or assess a tax. In those days the 
parish was thoroughly looked after with relation both to 
civil and ecclesiastical matters. With the breaking up 
of this relationship of the church to the town, the 
parish of a church has become so indefinite that now it 
practically means all that territory which it holds and 
looks after. The presence of a number of churches in 
a town so distributes the responsibility that it rests but 
lightly upon each one, and frequently the duty of over- 
sight is neglected by all. In some country towns in the 
older states the churches have one by one died out, leav- 
ing no church organization or Sunday-school to look 
after the spiritual concerns of the community. That 
fact is a serious one, and one of the grave problems 
which has to be solved is as to what shall be done for 
the country towns where such a state of things exists. 

In both of the cases suggested the Home Department 
may be a most useful organization. Where there are a 
number of churches which have not been fully looking 
after the field in which they are placed, a joint canvass 



58 The Home Department 

by them under the Home Department plan will not only 
let them know what are the facts relative to the town, 
and gather into them those who need only a little nrging 
to come in, but will systematically follow it up, so that 
each church shall know once every three months through 
its Home Department visitors what families have come 
in or gone out or should be especially seen by the 
pastor. A corps of such visitors going over the field 
once every quarter may be of incalculable assistance to 
the pastor and of advantage to the church. Where all 
the churches have died out, if a Sunday-school cannot 
be established, the Home Department can connect the 
families with the churches in the next live parish, and so 
not leave them entirely without the quickening influence 
of the Word. 

II. ILLUSTRATED. 

I. The aged. — At Gilsum, N. H., two aged women 
in feeble health, members of the church, but who never 
again expected to cross its threshold, were more than 
glad to become members of the Home Department. It 
brought them, the visitor says, in touch with the 
Sunday-school once more, and they felt that they were 
having a part in its work from Sunday to Sunday. " It 
is a new link to bind them to the church they love so 
well." One of them was a pupil in what is believed to 
have been the first Sunday-school established in the state 
of New Hampshire. 

The Congregational Sunday-school of Franklin, Dela- 
ware County, N. Y., in organizing its Home Department 
induced nine persons over seventy years of age to 
join. 



The Purpose of the Home Department 59 

In canvassing for a Home Department in connection 
with the Prospect Street Congregational Sunday-school of 
Newburyport, Mass., an old lady ninety-seven years of age 
was found who gladly enrolled herself in a Home Class, 
saying, " I Ve wanted to join some such thing for a long 
while, so as to study the Bible with those who are in the 
Sunday-school, but I did n't think you would get around 
to it in my day." 

At North Brookfield, Mass., on Children's Day, when 
the roll of the Home Department was called, among the 
hundred responding was one man ninety- six years of 
age. 

In Binghamton, N. Y., an old lady belongs to a 
Home Class, who is but just able to get around her 
room by pushing a wheeled chair. To her the privilege 
of studying the lesson in connection with the Sunday- 
school has been greatly prized. When the visitor came, 
bringing a new Quarterly, she said : *' Why, you 're a 
long time coming ! I studied my book through in a 
month, and it 's such a comfort to me ! Seems as if I 
was somebody again ! " When told that her Quarterly 
was for three months, she disappointedly replied : '^ Oh, 
is it? I wanted you to come oftener." 

II. Invalids. — In establishing a Home Department 
in a town in New Hampshire the first one invited to join 
was a lady in poor health. She rejoiced at the oppor- 
tunity thus afforded her, saying that her husband would 
study with her, and adding, " You don't know how I 
feel when I hear the bell ring on Sunday morning; I 
want so much to go to church." 

In Otsego County, N. Y., an invalid was enrolled in a 
Home Class of ^Nt, Recovering, her first call was upon 



6o The Home Department, 

the Visitor who induced her to join ; and to her she 
said : " I thank you for helping me to study God's 
Word. I have found Christ, and I want to join the 
church." 

On joining the Home Department said one who had 
been a '^ shut-in " for ten years : '^ It seems good to feel 
that I belong with Christians and am doing something in 
common with them." 

A member of the Home Department connected with 
Dr. E. N. Packard's church, Syracuse, N. Y., while on a 
dying bed, said : '^ Tell my pastor that my home study 
record is full up to date." 

ni. The isolated. — Mr. A. Jardine, of Winnipeg, 
Manitoba, has found the Home Department an admirable ^ 
substitute for the Sunday-school during the winter. The 
temperature at times there touches forty-six degrees 
below zero, rendering it unsafe for the children to be out. 
For the time they are practically isolated. So, too, are 
those who live too far away to attend the school even in 
more moderate weather. Among all these Mr. Jardine 
has sought to keep up interest in the study of the lesson 
by means of Home Classes. His scholars are all ready 
in the spring to begin Sunday-school at the high water 
mark. 

Connected with the Sunday-school at Pullman, Wash., 
is a Home Department which at last accounts was reach- 
ing twenty-five persons, seven of whom were not near 
enough to attend the school or church, and twelve of 
whom were in the mountain camps, ninety miles away. 
It takes some correspondence to sustain such a Depart- 
ment, but how welcome it must be to those lonely 
miners ! 



The Purpose of the Home Department, 6i 

The Home Department of the First Baptist Sunday- 
school of Elmira, N. Y., has in it three members who are 
totally blind, three families living on the plains in Mon- 
tana, and one neighborhood Home Class composed of 
those who live a great distance from church, and who 
meet at the house of one of their number, who acts as 
leader. 

In a township in New York State, where there is no 
Sunday-school, a lady who is crippled with rheumatism 
and who has been a '' shut-in '* for years is a member of a 
Home Department of a Sunday-school forty miles away. 

A Home Department in Connecticut has in its mem- 
bership eight persons who have removed to Utah. In 
this way the old ties and the old religious influences are 
kept alive. 

A farmer's wife, living eight miles from New Milford, 
Conn., heard of the Home Department, and concluded 
to start one. She lives four miles from church in a 
sparsely settled community. Though busy with many 
cares, she enlisted thirteen, three of whom are in Col- 
orado. From the Colorado contingent has grown a 
Sunday-school fully equipped and officered. Recently 
she invited the local members to spend the evening at 
her house. Ten responded, and the time passed dehght- 
fuUy in talking over the lessons and in the good fellow- 
ship called out by association in study. 

IV. Mothers. — Now and then letters have been re- 
ceived from mothers which show their interest in this 
movement. One of the last was from a widow with eight 
children. She wants not only to study the lessons with 
her own children, but proposes to organize a Home Class 
to consist of mothers, invalids, and children quarantined 



62 The Home Department, 

on account of sickness. What a blessing she has it in 
her heart to be ! 

V. Pastors. — How the Home Department may help 
pastors is illustrated by two incidents in Connecticut. 
A lady past middle age, not a professor of religion, 
joined a Home Department. Meeting her with her 
Quarterly in her hand, the pastor found it very easy to 
approach her on the subject of religion through her Bible 
study. In the other case a woman had been with difficulty 
persuaded to join the Home Department, but became 
interested in the study of the Scriptures after she had done 
so. Formerly she had repelled all the efforts of her 
pastor to talk with her on the subject of personal religion. 
Noting that her reports of home study were good, the 
pastor commended her for them. Calling upon her after 
a few months, he found her entirely accessible to conver- 
sation and she was glad to have him pray with her. 

One man, who had been alienated from the church, 
after joining the Home Department came back with his 
family, and now appears with them regularly in the old 
family pew. 

Before his death Rev. R. D. Metcalf had a Home 
Department in New York State nine miles wide by fifteen 
long ! In two others established by him he had three 
hundred students enrolled. One result of a Home 
Department organized by him while pastor at East Fair- 
field, Vt., was the beginning of a Sunday-school at East 
Fletcher, which was started as a branch of the school at 
Bakersfield, It gathered about fifty at its first session, 
only three of those present of school age ever having 
been members of a Sunday-school before. See the 
chapter on the Home Department and the Pastor. 



The Purpose of the Home Department, 63 

VI. The parish. — The superintendent of a Sunday- 
school in Vermont writes that in his Home Department 
there are thirty-six famihes, only ten of which ever come 
to church and twenty-six of which have in all forty-six 
children that would be without Sunday-school privileges 
except for this method of reaching them. Some of the 
families live five miles away from the school. He says : 
'• I never saw anything like the Home Department for 
reaching every nook and corner of the parish.'* 

When the Home Department plan was adopted by 
the churches at Prattsburg, N. Y., it was pushed by 
them cooperatively. The place is a village of only 
six hundred inhabitants, and has three churches with 
a membership of less than four hundred. A force of 
forty-five visitors was put into the field, each one report- 
ing to his own Sunday-school superintendent, but each 
superintendent notifying the other superintendents of 
families preferring a different denominational connection 
than his own. As the result of the canvass, 201 joined 
Home Classes, distributed as follows : Presbyterians 90 ; 
Methodists 71 ; Baptists 40. Here was one canvass 
instead of three, and the impression made by the comity 
exhibited must have been far better than would have 
been the case had each church visited the whole parish 
solely in its own interests. 

Writing of the Home Department, Rev. W. R. Suther- 
land, of Rossburn, Manitoba, Can., says : — 

We as missionaries cannot do our work in scattered dis- 
tricts without it. Our presbytery includes a large district of 
thinly-settled country. The great majority of our people 
live in the country. We have Sunday-schools along the 
railroad the year round, but in all this district there were not 



64 The Home Deparhnent 

more than eight or ten schools last winter, while fully one 
half the people beyond the railroad have no Sunday-school 
in summer. Take summer and winter together and it equals 
half the people beyond the reach of Sunday-schools in this 
presbytery. Our towns are small and the country large. 
Now the Home Department is so plastic that it adapts itself 
with equal ease and simplicity to the wants of scattered 
districts, where you can have no school at all as a center of 
operation, as it does to the cities. For example, we send a 
missionary to a scattered mission field, where no Sunday- 
school can be efficiently maintained, and he can in twelve 
months' time have as large a percentage of the people study- 
ing the Sunday-school lesson at home as in the average town 
or village. I had eighty in one field, some of them six miles 
from the nearest family. By means of this grand scheme we 
can have our whole scattered mission field one Sunday-school 
and all bound together with the school spirit. 

7. Membership. — The Sunday-school at Caledonia, 
N. D., had for membership but one man and a few 
women, and yet it organized three other Sunday-schools 
in its vicinity. It also started a Home Department 
through a stage driver, who offered to deliver the lesson 
helps and papers to any along his route who would join. 
From that Home Department grew a Sunday-school. 

The Home Departments of the Carrington and Mel- 
ville schools, N. D., proved also to be prolific seed. 
After being carried on by them for two or three years, 
Httle Sunday-schools were organized out of them, which 
set up for themselves — a strawberry way of propagation. 

The Presbyterian Sunday-school of Lebanon, Ind., 
without going outside of the families already connected 
with its school and congregation, enrolled over a hun- 
dred members. 



The Purpose of the Home Department 65 

The Home Department of the school at Hyde Park, 
Mass., Rev. Andrew W. Archibald, pastor, numbers about 
250, and has thirteen visitors. The pastor testifies that 
this Department is of great value to him in his work of 
visitation, and that it has had a marked effect in securing 
better study in the school by bringing the home into 
cooperation with the teachers. It also has added to the 
membership of the main department. 

At the present writing Connecticut is reported to have 
209 Home Departments with a total membership of 
nearly 6,000. W. H. Hall, Secretary of the Connecticut 
State Sunday-school Association, says in his last report : 
*' The Home Department has demonstrated in Connecti- 
cut its power to reach and influence in favor of Bible 
study people of all classes and conditions, many of 
whom are not approachable in any other way. Its adapt- 
ability to varying and prevalent conditions is universally 
acknowledged. It invariably tends to the upbuilding of 
the Sunday-school in membership, in interest, and 
in power." 

A Yale theological student, just after his graduation^ 
was called to one of the old hill towns in New England. 
He found that there were ninety-six persons in the 
Sunday-school. Organizing a Home Department, one 
year afterwards the statistics of the school were as fol- 
lows ; — In the main school, 116 ; in the Home Depart- 
ment, 136 — total, 352. 

A Home Department in Pennsylvania, in the city of 
Reading, numbering over two hundred, had among its 
membership ladies, business and professional men, an 
army officer, and a member of Congress. 

Tioga County, New York, with no large cities in it, 



66 The Home Department, 

has twenty- seven Home Departments, with a total mem- 
bership of 976. Broome County, N. Y., has twenty-five 
Home Departments wath 967 members, eight of which 
are in Binghamton. Five of the eight churches of Cort- 
land, N. Y., canvassed the village, securing 250 for their 
Home Departments. The three Sunday-schools of 
McGrawville, a village in Cortland County, united in 
canvassing their territory, and in ten days' time obtained 
87 members for their Home Departments. 

The superintendent of the Home Department con- 
nected with the South Church, New Britain, Conn., 
writes : " When the work was undertaken (about four 
years ago), it was thought by many that it was not only 
an unnecessary work, but that it would interfere with the 
main school, and draw from our numbers. Instead of 
that the result has been to increase the membership of 
the school. The inevitable result of awakening interest 
in Bible study at home seems to be to bring to Sunday- 
school all who can come. Of 337, who up to this date 
have joined the Home Department, we have at present 
about 270 members. Nearly thirty have come into the 
Sunday-school, ten have died, quite a number have left 
town, and a few have dropped out. 

" Among our members are many elderly people and 
invalids, also mothers with young children, who though 
unable to attend the main school are glad to be con- 
nected with it. We have also many foreigners, parents 
of children in our school, who seldom enter a church 
themselves, and who are practically without the gospel. 
Some of them cannot read English, but are pleased with 
a Quarterly in their own language. W^e provide forty 
German and Swedish Quarterhes. We also send an 



The Purpose of the Home Department 67 

envelope to each member with the Quarterly and report 
card, but with the distinct understanding that all contri- 
butions are voluntary. Last year the offerings amounted 
to ^115, and after paying all expenses we had ^70 for 
missionary work." 

8. Results. In Binghamton, N. Y., the visitors in 
canvassing for the Home Department found a man so 
given over to drink, that, losing all hope of regaining his 
manhood, he had attempted suicide. While confined to 
his bed from the injuries which he had inflicted upon 
himself, they induced him to join the Home Department. 
His study of the Bible led to his conversion, to his vic- 
tory over his depraved appetite, and to his joining a 
Methodist church in that city. 

In the same city a backslider who had not attended 
any church for years became a member of a Home 
Class, and soon afterwards resumed his attendance upon 
the services of the church. When dying he expressed 
a good hope in Christ, and attributing his salvation to 
that agency, exclaimed : '^ God bless the man who first 
thought of the Home Class ! " 

In Chenango County, N. Y., the Home Department 
was introduced into a small Baptist Sunday-school. The 
pastor, in testifying to its remarkable success, spoke par- 
ticularly of one case. He said that a man who refused 
to go to church and who had openly scoffed at rehgion 
was induced to join the Home Department, and that as 
a consequence he had become a regular attendant upon 
the church services and that he had transferred his mem- 
bership from the Home Department to the pastor's 
Bible class. 

In New Hampshire a business man, when asked to 



6S The Home Department. 

join a Home Class, said : ^* I suppose you hope that we 
will go into the Sunday-school by and by -^ and we ought 
to." Another, hearing the matter mentioned from the 
pulpit brought three names besides his own, saying, ^' I 
thought that I would like to be in such a class." 

In Syracuse, N. Y., in connection with Good Will 
Sunday-school a Home Class was formed in a family 
where the father was a drinking man and in the habit of 
beating his wife. He would not allow the children to 
attend any Sunday-school, but would permit a teacher to 
come into his own home and instruct them. That 
teacher said that one Sunday the mother came out of the 
bedroom with her face covered with blood from the 
brutal blows inflicted by her husband. The Home 
Class was the first reformative agency to obtain an admis- 
sion to that home. 

In a letter from Dora, Minn., the writer says : " We 
think that the Home Department work has resulted indi- 
rectly in at least two conversions, and as we are com- 
mencing a new work a few miles south of here, we think 
it advisable to introduce the Home Department there, 
with a view to creating an interest in, and a final organi- 
zation of, a Sunday-school in that place." The Home 
Department in many instances has proved to be an 
effective pioneer for the Sunday-school. 

In the Washington Street Sunday-school, Toledo, Ohio, 
Marion Lawrance superintendent, there is a Home 
Department which has members in eight different states. 
The fact that after one moves away into another state he 
keeps up his connection with it shows how strong a hold 
the Home Department has. 

A young woman absent from home at work induced 



The Purpose of the Home Department, 69 

her father's family to join the Home Department. Four 
other families in the neighborhood soon united in the 
study, none of which had been in the habit of attending 
any religious service. Within a year the parents in these 
families united with the nearest church. 

The superintendent of the Home Department at 
Richford, N. Y., writes that in an out district, far from any 
church or Sunday-school, where her assistant at first 
feared to approach any one with the suggestion of join- 
ing the Home Department, the people have become so 
interested as lo meet in little neighborhood classes, 
meeting in the different schoolhouses for the purpose of 
studying the lesson. The pastor adds that in one of 
these neighborhoods there are only two professing Chris- 
tians, and that one of the roughest men in the town, a 
man of about sixty-five, lives there. Though the latter 
is still rough, he has much improved, having become 
interested in Bible study, and having changed from 
favoring license to opposing it. His influence has been 
quite a factor in making the town go no-license. 

The foregoing are merely sample illustrations out of 
thousands of similar incidents. They are not selected, 
but are taken as they come to hand. Probably many 
who read them can more than match them with others in 
their own experience. 



in. 

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOME 
DEPARTMENT.! 

The definition of the purpose of the Home Depart- 
ment has been given. The definition of the Home 
Department itself is as follows : — 

The Home Department is that agency or department 
of the Sunday-school whose object is to promote the 
study of the Bible, in connection with the Su7iday-school, 
among those who for any reason do not attend its 
sessions. 

That which has been said relative to the purpose of 
the Home Department renders it needless here to refer 
to anything more than its relations to the main school. 
Of thaf it is a department, as close in its connection as 
the Senior, the Intermediate, or the Primary Depart- 
ments. If it be the custom, as is the case in many of 
the larger schools, to constitute an Executive Committee 
of the heads of the different departments, then the 
superintendent of the Home Department should have a 

^ It should be understood that in what is here said about organization and 
subsequently about methods the author follows almost literally the divisions of 
the address delivered by Dr. Duncan in St. Louis before the World's Sunday- 
school Convention and the outline of the Normal Class Leaflet No. 4, prepared 
with great care by him. The writer has desired to present the Home Class work 
from the standpoint of the author of the Home Class, and therefore has followed 
him strictly in all but the filling up. 

70 



The Organization of the Home Department, 71 

place upon that Executive Committee. The officers of 
the Home Department should be regarded as officers of 
the school ; its visitors should rank along with the 
teachers, and its members should be counted in with the 
rest of the school — even when reporting to the denomi- 
national or interdenominational headquarters for the 
gathering of statistics. The study of the lesson by the 
members of the Home Department should be looked 
upon as the equivalent of personal attendance upon the 
school, and their contributions should go into the com- 
mon treasury. The students in the Home Classes should 
be welcomed into classes of like grade. They should 
be entitled to the use of the library and to participation 
in all the Sunday-school socials, picnics, entertainments, 
lectures, etc. The Home Department never should be 
referred to as an outside organization, having only a 
nominal connection with the church or school. 

Being a department of the Sunday-school it should 
make its quarterly and annual reports, and in turn be 
made acquainted with the facts concerning the school as 
a whole. The interest of the members of the Home 
Department will be greatly increased by the closeness of 
this fellowship. They will come to take a personal con- 
cern in the growth or decrease of the Sunday-school, and 
will in many instances be led to join the main school. 
Many schools either print a quarterly report, or reproduce 
it by one of the duplicating processes, and send it to 
every member of the Home Department. Too much 
stress cannot be laid upon making the members of the 
Home Department feel that they are a part of the school, 
as essential as any other part. The more cordial and 
complete that recognition is, the better will the Home 



72 The Home Department. 

Department be able to accomplish its mission. The 
main school should be like a magnet, drawing every 
member of the Home Department towards itself and 
holding them all to one center by means of its powerful 
influence. 

Again, being a department merely, it should be sub- 
ject to all the rules and regulations of the school which 
are applicable to it. Its officers and workers should be 
appointed according to the rules or custom of the school, 
and they should act under the direction and in coopera- 
tion with its executive. They should consider that they 
are working in the interests of the school as a whole and 
not merely for their department alone. Hence their 
thought should be, not to make the Home Department 
as large as possible, but to make it contribute to the 
growth and interest of the main school. Some primary 
departments, in order to keep a greater showing, unwisely 
retain pupils who should go into the intermediate de- 
partment. The Home Department may do its very best 
work by entirely obliterating itself, as was the case with 
one started in Manitoba, every one of its members 
having joined the main school. Whenever one of a 
Home Class transfers his connection to the school there 
is cause for rejoicing, for that fact is evidence that the 
Home Department has awakened in him such a love of 
Bible study that he wishes the additional aid of personal 
teaching and class discussion. The value of the Home 
Department is not to be gathered from its numbers, but 
by what it does for those connected with it and for the 
school. 

How shall the Home Department be organized ? It 
should have: — i. A superintendent. 2. A secretary 



The Organization of the Home Department. 73 

and treasurer, when large enough to need one. 3. Visi- 
tors. 4. Home Classes. 

Let us take up these in their order : — 

1. The Superintendent. — i. His appoint- 
ment. Reference already has been made to the fact 
that this officer should be chosen according to the rules 
or custom of the school. If installation is practiced with 
regard to the heads of the other departments, or if any 
special rites are observed upon their appointment, or 
any public notice is taken of it, then a like recognition 
of the importance of the office should be accorded to 
his entering upon its responsibilities. Incidentally it 
may be said that some form of induction into office 
which fitly emphasizes the greatness of the obligation 
imposed by it would be advisable in the case of any 
Sunday-school functionary. Responsibilities easily and 
lightly assumed are quite likely to be carelessly dis- 
charged and easily dropped. 

2. His qualifications. We hardly need say that 
much depends upon the qualifications of the superin- 
tendent. Under the care of one the Home Department 
will fail, while with another at its head it will be a great 
success. Great pains, therefore, should be taken in the 
selection of the one to whom it is to be entrusted. The 
limitation of the English language is such that we have 
to speak as if the superintendent must be a man — but 
a woman may hold the office. In many instances it has 
been found better to place a woman in charge of the 
work. Get the best one for the place to be found without 
regard to sex. Whether the superintendent be one or 
the other, certain endowments are necessary in order to 
achieve success. They are ; — 



74 The Home Department 

(i) Consecration to the service of Christ, The 
superintendent should not be a reluctant but a zealous 
worker. He should feel that the Master has called him 
to work — to minister rather than to be ministered unto. 
He should be inspired with a love for souls and a great 
desire to see them ingathered into the kingdom. He 
should be so enthusiastic that others w^U take fire from 
his flame. If the work be undertaken as an onerous 
duty, rather than as a great opportunity for service, the 
achievements will be comparatively small. An engine 
will move in proportion to the steam generating in the 
boiler. We work hard to accomplish those things in 
which our hearts are engaged, and as much as possible 
slight those in which we have but little interest. To 
secure faithful and thorough work in the Home Depart- 
ment, therefore, the superintendent should be one of 
those who reply to the Lord's call : " Here am I ; send 
me." 

(2) Faith in the Home Department as an effective 
agency. The one who thoroughly believes in a thing 
will make it accomplish a great deal when others can 
achieve little or nothing with it. One's efforts will be in- 
creased according to his faith. A happy, cheerful con- 
fidence as to results will make things go. It will stimu- 
late all the under-workers. It will commend the plan to 
whomsoever it may be suggested; for one of the first 
things necessary to make others believe in anything is to 
believe in it strongly one's self. It is said of Jesus' second 
visit to Nazareth : "• And he did not many mighty works 
there because of their unbehef " (Matt. 13:58). If any- 
where the Home Department should fail to accomplish 
many mighty works, it would probably be for a like reason. 



The Organization of the Home Department, 75 

How shall faith be obtained? By considering the pur- 
pose and the plan of the Home Department. Observe 
hovv adapted it is to enlist people in the study of the 
Scriptures. By ascertaining what it has accomphshed in 
other places. It is no longer an experiment, but has 
been proved to be a powerful agency for evangelization. 
By personal experience. Go into the field determined 
to demonstrate its full efficiency, and faith will develop 
with each proof of its adaptation to its end. 

(3) Executive ability. That means simply the power 
to carry a plan into execution. The one who has it 
sees quickly how to adapt the means which he has to 
accomplish his object, or how to get the means in case 
he hasn't them. He is full of resources. If one 
method fails, he has another which is better. Many 
address themselves to their task without considering how 
best to do it ; he considers, thinks, compares, plans. In 
the phrase of the day, he " gets there." It is such a 
one who should be chosen to be the superintendent of 
the Home Department. 

(4) Tact. Tact means touch, and in the sense here 
used, it is the ability to touch people in the right way. 
Its meaning is illustrated by the prayer of the little girl 
who petitioned God " to help her rub kitty in the way 
that makes her purr and not the way that makes her 
scratch." Some people are always rubbing the fur in the 
wrong way. The disposition is aroused to say No to 
their request even before its nature is fully apprehended. 
Just the contrary is the case w^ith regard to the approach of 
others. The desire to oblige them is such that an assent 
is given to every reasonable demand even before it is 
fully stated. One with tact will easily accomplish that 



76 The Home Department 

which others will not be able to do at all or do only with 
the hardest of effort. Do not put a tactless person in as 
superintendent of the Home Department. 

(5) Persistence, A great many things are abandoned 
just at that point where a little more effort would make 
them go. Nearly every undertaking has its period of 
difficulty at the beginning, which must be surmounted. 
Let it not be thought by any one that a successful Home 
Department can be organized and carried on from the 
very start without any discouragements. The visitors 
may meet with refusal after refusal. It may seem at the 
outset impossible to establish even a single Home Class. 
There are those who have met with this experience, 
and yet by persevering have seen a splendid result crown 
their labors. Be pleased if even only a few are secured ; 
don't be satisfied, but be glad. In time, and by con- 
tinued effort, the few will become many. The superin- 
tendent who persists, who will not entertain for a 
moment the thought of defeat, will in the end find 
himself the head of a Home Department of which he 
will have no occasion to be ashamed. 

3. His duties. Before undertaking any work one 
should ascertain exactly what is required in order to 
accomplish it. A clear understanding of the duties 
involved in the position of superintendent of the Home 
Department will of itself be a preparation for the office. 
Those duties are : — 

(i) To map out and thoroughly know the field. The 
first thing to discover is the extent of the territory to be 
canvassed. Some of it may be thickly and some of it 
may be thinly settled. That fact must be taken into 
consideration in districting the field. Some of it will be 



The Organization of the Home Department. 77 

found to be easy of access and some of it difficult ; some 
of it may be respectable and some of it may have a 
hostile population with some " toughs "in it ; some may 
be where the people of the church reside and some of 
it may be where there are few church-goers, etc. All 
these things must be taken into account in estimating 
the number of visitors required, and in assigning them to 
their several fields, for it must be evident that a visitor 
who is perfectly adapted to one district may not be at all 
fitted to go into another. The leader of a band of 
visitors must be thoroughly acquainted with each portion 
of the territory to be covered by them. He is a poor 
general who does not look over the battlefield before- 
hand, if there is the least opportunity to do so. The 
superintendent should be able to tell each visitor con- 
cerning her field, the best way of getting to it, the 
character of its inhabitants,' the course to pursue in 
approaching the people, etc. 

(2) To select a corps of visitors. Having mapped 
out his territory and divided it into districts, the super- 
intendent then, with an eye to its several fields, should 
look over the church membership and select those whom 
he deems to be best adapted to the work. These should 
be nominated by him to the school or to the executive 
committee, or to the church, as may be the rule or the 
custom, and elected to their positions in the usual way. 
The better the material in the visitors the surer will be 
their welcome. It is a mistake to send out the uninflu- 
ential and the uninfluencing. The work should not be 
felt by any one to be beneath her. When any one so 
feels, she is not worthy of it. Nominate the best women 
in the church, and leave it to them to say whether they 



78 The Home Departme7iL 

will not or can not act. The higher the standing of the 
visitors in the church and socially, the more likely will 
they succeed in getting members of the best families to 
join the Home Department; and if they join, that fact 
will be a powerful inducement for others to follow. 
Women are suggested for visitors rather than men 
because they are hkely to be able to command more 
time, are more zealous, have more tact, and are more 
welcome in the homes to be visited. 

(3) To instruct the visitors and to assign to them their 
work. Even the most intelligent and quick-witted are 
helped by a little instruction. Mr. Moody has found it 
advisable to have a school for Christian workers, that 
they may be fitted for just this kind of effort — that of 
approaching people in their homes. Having secured his 
corps of visitors, the superintendent should meet with 
them and clearly outline their duties, explaining the pur- 
pose and the plan of the Home Department, indicating 
the methods to be followed and assigning each to her 
field. At this first meeting it is important that the 
visitors be inspired with enthusiasm for their work, and 
that they be made to feel that it is not taken up to be 
followed only for a little while. Very much will depend 
upon the spirit and the purpose with which the visitors 
enter upon their labors. Better that some fields should 
remain for a while unvisited than to send into them 
those who will merely make it harder for others to 
succeed. 

The superintendent should have a meeting with his 
visitors at least once every quarter for comparing notes, 
learning methods from each other, the relation of expe- 
riences, and for prayer. Such meetings will be of great 



The Organization of the Home Department, 79 

value to the visitors, and they will go out from them 
strengthened and made wiser for their work. 

(4) To keep accurate records. In the Home Depart- 
ment, bookkeeping is as necessary as in a business house. 
Success in any enterprise comes from looking after 
details. The books should show every accession to the 
department and every loss ; they should contain the 
names of all the visitors and of the members of the 
Home Classes; they should indicate every transference 
from the Home Department to the main school, every 
removal of any member of a Home Class and to what 
locality, every result accomplished by his membership. 
In other words, the object of the bookkeeping is not to 
make a show of statistics merely, but to keep track of 
each Home Class mem.ber so that he shall not be lost. 
From the records thus kept the superintendent will make 
quarterly and annual reports to the main school, that 
every one in the school may take an interest in the 
Home Department and feel that it is part of the school. 
He will also make similar reports to each member of the 
Home Classes, that each one may see what are the facts 
relative to the Home Department, and so the tie to it be 
made the stronger. In that report he will add the sta- 
tistics of the main school that the force of connection 
with it may be felt. 

(5) ^^ plan and direct social^ instructive^ and reli- 
gious gatherings for the members of the Home Department, 
An esprit de corps may be developed and stimulated by 
such meetings which will tend to make the department 
very popular, and in that way aid its further increase. At 
the first social the pastor might give an informal talk on 
Bible study, emphasizing its importance and expressing 



8o The Home Department. 

his hearty sympathy with the new organization. For 
subsequent gatherings speakers should be ,secured to give 
an insight into the books being studied, and to give an 
idea of the times in which and the purpose for which 
they were written, or to speak upon some themes which 
have come up in class study. Neighborhood prayer- 
meetings can be instituted among the members of the 
Home Department, and occasionally a meeting be held 
to which all shall be invited to be addressed by the 
pastor or some effective speaker. 

II. Visitors. — As already indicated the visitors 
usually should be ladies. In Home Department work 
they succeed better than men. By nature they are 
better fitted for it. Many church members who feel that 
they have no gift for teaching in the Sunday-school will 
find that they can do this work well. Of course it is 
better to take those not already employed in some 
church service, that the working power of the church may 
be developed. In some cases the Y. P. S. C, E. has 
furnished a band of zealous young people for the pur- 
pose, but as a rule more will be accomplished by the 
more mature and experienced. 

I. Their qualifications. Like the superintendent 
they need Christian zeal for their work. They should 
prosecute it with relish. They should be fully per- 
suaded in their own minds that it is right, necessary, 
and efficacious. They should have full confidence in 
the Home Department as an agency for accomplishing 
its purpose. They should be persons of high Christian 
character, so that they will be respected wherever they 
go. They should have courage and tactful persistence 
in their work. With these qualifications they will have 



The Organization of the Home Department, 8i 

no trouble in establishing a Home Department of great 
value. 

2. Their duties, (i) To organize Home Classes. 
This is to be done by a thorough canvassing of the 
neighborhood entrusted to each. Each family is to be 
visited, its religious statistics gathered, and so far as 
possible all of its members pledged to enter the Home 
Department, who can not or will not attend the sessions 
of the Sunday-school. The first effort should be directed 
towards inducing those to join the main school who are 
able to do so. The Visitor should consider that it is a 
greater gain to influence one to connect himself with the 
m.ain school than with the Home Department, for then 
he is brought into touch with a teacher, is quickened by 
the thoughts suggested in the class, and feels the impulse 
of the school. Of course the Visitor will not neglect 
the opportunity which her visit affords to give a cordial 
invitation to attend the services of the church, though 
care must be taken not to proselyte from other churches. 
If any family prefers a church and Sunday-school of a 
different denomination, true Christian comity will suggest 
that the pastor and superintendent concerned shall be 
notified of the fact. It is sufficient to secure a simple 
oral promise that one will study the Sunday-school lesson 
at least a half hour each week. The written pledge has 
been almost abandoned, it having been found in practi- 
cal work unnecessary. If one says that he will study 
the lesson, and takes the Quarterly and the report collec- 
tion envelope, that is all the proof that is needed of his 
intention to study as desired. For the various forms 
which a Home Class^may take, see Classes. 

(2) To visit the members of the Home Classes 



82 The Home Department, 

regularly. The enrolment of members should be 
followed by regular visitation to provide them at the end 
of the quarter with new lesson helps, report collection 
envelopes or report cards and collection envelopes, and 
to receive their offerings. These calls should be made 
immediately after the last Sunday of the quarter, so that 
there will be ample time to study the lesson for the next 
Sunday by those who may wish to take it up during the 
week. Other visits should be made as occasion may 
require, such as sickness, affliction, report of intended 
removal, etc. 

Much will depend upon the character of these visits. 
If they are merely perfunctory calls, they will result in 
but little ; but if they are permeated with a spirit of true 
and helpful friendliness, they may accomplish a great 
deal. Two errors should be avoided. The first is the 
assumption of the official missionary lam-come-to-do- 
you-good air, and the other is the manifestation of 
insincere gush. Be neither formal nor too demonstrative. 
Be content to make headway slowly, but hold all that is 
gained. Bear in mind the fact that the enrolment is 
only the means to an end, and that that end is the con- 
version and discipleship of each member of the Home 
Class. But watch for fitting opportunities of conversation 
on personal religion; do not be too premature in 
approaching a topic concerning which people do not 
talk freely and sincerely except to those who have won 
their way into their hearts. Begin with such matters as 
relate to the study of the lessons, and then, as acquaint- 
ance justifies, speak of Christ. 

If there is an evident indisposition to join the Home 
Class, do not press the matter to an adverse decision, but 



The Organization of the Home Department, ^^ 

suggest that the circulars be read and the scheme be 
thoroughly considered, promising to call again. There 
is hope of success if consent to think over the matter be 
secured. By the next visit there may be other names 
added to the list of those pledged which will have a 
strong influence in favor of an affirmative answer. 
Many will join if they see that others are joining, and 
will decline if they think they are to be alone in 
doing so. 

Particularly the Visitor should avoid controversy on 
religious topics. Do not be entrapped into an argument. 
Suffer unkind criticism, but do not indulge in any. Do 
not speak offensively of any pastor, church, or denomi- 
nation. Make no efforts to proselyte from any other 
sect. Let the Visitor show that her sole purpose is to 
promote Bible study and to build up Christ's kingdom. 

The Visitor may suggest many things to her Home 
Class which will be stimulating to its members, and which 
will bind them together and give her a greater hold upon 
them. She can make mention of books in the library 
peculiarly worth reading, give information of approach- 
ing socials, picnics, or entertainments, and relate such 
facts concerning the Sunday-school and the church as 
will tend to foster interest in them. She can arrange for 
class reunions, and at those reunions, or during the 
round of her visits, may induce the members to enter 
upon some course of reading together. That would be 
particularly helpful. The reading need not necessarily 
be of a religious character, but it should have to do 
only with standard authors. After the course is com- 
pleted a free and informal meeting, for the purpose of 
discussing it, would suggest itself, and would prepare the 



84 The Home Department 

way for another. The course in each instance should 
be short. Again the Visitor, after looking up the matter 
thoroughly, may recommend that the class devote its 
offerings to some worthy object, such as the establishing 
of some Sunday-school out upon the frontier, the 
support of some bed in a hospital, the contribution 
of a specified amount towards the salary of some mis- 
sionary, etc. When the proper time comes she may 
suggest class prayer-meetings, and point out such work 
for Christ as can be done by its members in their 
neighborhood, . thus making of her class an active 
evangelizing agency. Thus studying together, reading 
together, meeting together, giving together, and pray- 
ing and working together, the members of a Home 
Class may be cemented in the closest ties of Chris- 
tian fellowship, and may become a power for good 
to others. 

Visitors also may be of great service in reporting to 
the superintendent and to the pastor cases of distressing 
poverty, affliction, need of a little aid in obtaining work, 
and of especial religious interest. They can let the 
pastor know of those families which have been neglect- 
ing the services of the church, and the reasons therefor ; 
they can inform him of homes where a visit from him 
would be helpful and welcome. Thus they can enable 
the minister to put in his spare time to the very best 
advantage, instead of having to waste a good deal of it 
in hunting up those whom he can benefit, or going 
around calling without any particular aim. By noting 
the circumstances of a family, the Visitor may be able 10 
suggest work which can be done by the mother, or 
daughter, or son, and so confer an inestimable favor 



The Organization of the Home Department, 85 

upon those who are willing to work, but do not know 
just how to make use of their capabilities. 

III. Classes. — The Home Department is made up 
of Home Classes. A Home Class may consist of only 
one person ; it should rarely have more than twenty to 
twenty-five members, though its number should depend 
upon the time which can be given to it by the Visitor. 
The average, probably, will not be more then ten to twelve. 
No Visitor should undertake the oversight of a class so 
large that she cannot fully take care of it. If classes 
grow beyond the ability of the Visitors to give them 
faithful visitation and oversight, new Visitors should be 
appointed and the overplus be formed into new classes. 
The members of a Home Class may be of different ages 
and requiring different grades of Quarterlies. The 
Visitor must take those who are willing to enlist, no 
matter how dissimilar they may be. In a Home Class 
grading is not necessary, inasmuch as in the most of 
cases individual study is the rule. Home Classes may 
be divided into : — 

, 1. Individual Classes. In these the members 
study independently of each other. They may live in the 
same neighborhood or they may be widely scattered. By 
Individual Classes it is possible to unite in study those 
who are traveling with those who stay at home ; those who 
remove to distant places with the Sunday-school which is 
so beloved by them ; those who are obhged to be on duty 
with those who are gathered together in the school ; those 
who are sick or infirm with those who are well and strong. 
The Home Class will most often take this form. 

2. Family Classes. It will now and then happen 
that a family too far removed to attend either church or 



86 The Home Department 

Sunday-school, or unable for other reasons to go, such as 
sickness, want of suitable clothing, etc., will be glad 
to pursue the study of the Sunday-school lesson together. 
In that case the father or mother will act as instructor, 
or both may unite without distinction in the service. Of 
course the grandparents will be included, if living and 
present. A Family Class is the most beautiful sight on 
earth when earnestly and devotionally engaged in the 
study of God's Word. There is hope for the household 
where all unite in the study of the Scriptures. Even 
when a Family Class is not formally organized the Visitor 
by tactful suggestion may induce the parents to help their 
children in the mastery of the lesson, thus practically 
establishing one. The children who go to the Sunday- 
school need this home help and oversight, and the Visitor 
may do much to secure them. 

3. Neighborhood Classes. In some localities it will 
be found that some will prefer to meet in the home of one 
of their number, for the purpose of studying and talking 
over the lesson together, under the leadership of one 
whom they may select. Such a class will be a Neighbor- 
hood Class. Thousands of such classes are in ooeration 
in country neighborhoods which are too remote from 
church and school to permit of having their privileges. 
They are the vital religious center of the little communi- 
ties where they exist, *^ holding the fort" for the reinforce- 
ments which they hope may come in due time, and stand- 
ing as a bulwark against a relapse into semi-heathenism. 
It is to be hoped that many Neighborhood Classes will 
be formed in isolated communities. They can be carried 
on independently or, what is better in most cases, joined 
to the nearest affiliated Sunday-school. 



The Organization of the Home Department, 87 

4. Correspondence Classes. The name suggests 
their character. With the consent of the Home Depart- 
ment superintendent, any one desiring to do so may start 
such a class and be its conductor. Think of those who 
are far separated from all the benefits and good fellowship 
of church and Sunday-school, and write, asking them if 
they would not like to become members of a Corre- 
spondence Class. Extend the invitation as the circle 
enlarges through those who are added to it and as new 
names occur, and it will not be long before a large class 
will be enrolled, as large as one will care to have the 
charge of. Quarterlies, of course, should be sent to 
each member, with the report-collection envelope ; and 
at the end of each quarter the report-collection envel- 
opes should be gathered up and a fresh supply sent. 
Suggestions as to course reading, benevolent contribu- 
tions, etc., may be made through correspondence, as in 
the other classes they are made orally. 

Of course a Home Class may unite two or more of 
these forms. 

IV. Lesson Helps. — The lesson helps used in 
the school should be furnished to the members of the 
Home Classes generally upon the same terms as to the 
other scholars. Many will prefer to pay for them. 
Whether they shall be given or not should be left to the 
discretion of the Visitor. Of course the Visitor should 
be careful to give to each Home Class student the grade 
of lesson help most suited to him. Some will be enrolled 
who are far enough advanced to demand the helps 
usually placed in the hands of teachers. A lawyer or 
any professional man would not feel complimented by 
having a juvenile help offered him. 



IV. 

THE HOME DEPARTMENT AND THE PASTOR. 

It should be understood that the pastor has that 
ofi&cial relation to the Home Department which he has, 
or should have, to every other activity of the church. 
The superintendent should consult freely with him and 
act under his advice and direction. The pastor will be 
profited by the Home Department almost, if not quite, 
as much as the Sunday-school; and therefore the im- 
portance of his being intimately associated with it and 
acquainted with all that it is doing. If pastors only 
reahzed what a help to them the Home Department 
might be, its general adoption would be phenomenally 
rapid. Let us note : — 

L How the Home Department can help the 
Pastor. — It can help him : — 

I. In church attendance. The special trouble in 
each church is to secure visitation and canvass of its 
field. Once in a while, when the matter is urgently 
presented, the members of the church are rallied to 
make the effort. They go from house to house, invite 
the newcomers to the church and Sunday-school, succeed 
in getting some who have been neglecting the services 
of the church, perhaps discover some cases of need, 
and think that they have done so great a thing that they 
can rest for a good long while. Such spasmodic going 
over the territory accomplishes but little. It does not 

88 



The Home Department and the Pastor, 89 

do very much good either to the church or to the com- 
munity. A regular, persistent, and thorough canvass is 
what is required. The Home Department furnishes a 
corps of visitors, who are pledged to visit every part of 
the parish at least four times a year, and who may go 
oftener. This is the very thing which should be done 
by the church and for the lack of which so many 
churches are languishing. There are empty pews, and 
no effort is made to fill them except by the pastor in his 
preaching. There is no going out in the highway and 
hedges to compel the people to come in. Each church 
should evangehze the neighborhood in which it is located, 
and that cannot be done simply by opening the church 
on Sunday. The gospel invitation must be carried to 
the people in their homes. This is done by the visitors 
of the Home Department. It is one of their duties to 
urge every one to attend church as well as to join the 
Sunday-school or the Home Department. Going over 
the field every quarter, they will be sure to discover the 
newcomers, and will make them feel that they are 
welcome both in the church and Sunday-school. By 
their frequent calls they will be able to overcome the 
reluctance of many to attend, and will make all feel that 
the church is indeed in earnest in looking after them. 
And that is the impression which every church should 
make. 

2. In visiting. In every large parish it is a serious 
problem with every pastor how to make his pastoral work 
tell to the best advantage. Perfunctory calling is now 
almost entirely given up, as not being worth the time 
and pains required. In some cases it is absolutely 
impossible for the minister to visit each family at stated 



90 The Home Department 

intervals. And yet the pastor who is not personally 
acquainted with his people, and who does not call upon 
them at all, has but little hold upon them. As a rule, 
the ministers in large parishes have it understood that 
they will visit where there is particular need of their 
services. How shall that need be discovered ? In those 
churches where a missionary is employed the pastor 
learns from him where he should go j but in the majority 
of churches there is no missionary. The corps of Home 
Department visitors can fulfill all his duties, and that 
without cost to the church. They can report to the 
pastor : — 

(i) Those who have letters from other churches. It 
too often happens that in coming into a new locality 
members of other churches do not immediately report 
the fact that they hold letters of dismission and recom- 
mendation. Frequently they are held so long that there 
is a reluctance to present them. This would not happen 
at all if there were a corps of visitors regularly canvass- 
ing the territory and inquiring into the church relation- 
ship of each new arrival. 

(2) Those who are interested in their own salvation. 
If the visitors are faithful in their work, such cases will 
frequently occur. They may find that they need the 
help of the pastor to secure the needed decision, or that 
he can remove doubts or make things clear where they 
are unable to do so. To a pastor it is great comfort and 
inspiration to be told of such cases. Under such cir- 
cumstances calling is worth while. 

(3) Those who are in trying circumsta7ices. The 
visitors will inform the pastor of any cases of sickness, 
of affliction, of distress from poverty, or from any other 



The Home Department and the Pastor. 91 

cause. Before he goes to any house he will so under- 
stand the circumstances that he will be prepared to say 
the right word and do the right thing. He will learn 
from the Visitors of persons needing work, young or old, 
and can aid them in securing it. 

(4 ) Those who can be developed. The Visitors should 
always remember that they can be of great service to 
the church and the pastor by noting what special capa- 
bilities there maybe in some of the members of their 
Home Classes. There may be some who would make 
admirable teachers, and that fact should be reported to 
the Sunday-school superintendent and to the pastor. 
They may find some musicians who could be enrolled in 
an orchestra for the Sunday-school or help in the church 
choir. They may discover some who would be zealous 
workers in the Christian Endeavor Society. They will 
tell the pastor of young persons who are desirous of 
obtaining a college education or of young men who are 
beginning to have thoughts of the ministry, and he can 
strengthen all such aspirations and help them to realize 
them. 

In these and other ways it is evident that the Home 
Department can do a great deal for the church and the 
pastor. It is a veritable Pastor's Aid Society. We now 
look at the other side : — 

II. How the Pastor can help the Home 
Department. — If it is to be a great aid to him, he 
must be a great aid to it. Its success will largely depend 
upon his attitude towards it. What can he do for it? 

I. He can introduce it. He should not wait for 
the superintendent of the Sunday-school to move in the 
matter, but should urge its adoption himself. He can 



92 The Home Department 

enlist the pastors of the other churches in the work, so 
that the canvass will be in the interest pf all, and thus 
good understanding and fellowship be promoted. By 
so doing he will be the means of establishing several 
Home Departments instead of one. At all events he 
can be persistent enough to organize a Home Depart- 
ment in connection with his own Sunday-school. Hav- 
ing succeeded iii-instituting it, — 

2. He can commend it. He can recognize it as a 
worthy department of church work. He can notice it 
from the pulpit, commending it to all. He can preach 
upon the value of Bible study, emphasizing the opportu- 
nity which the Home Department gives to carry on such 
study at home in connection with the Sunday-school and 
by the aid of the excellent helps which are furnished. 
He can speak of it in his pastoral visits, especially 
recommending it to business men, to the aged, the 
infirm, the invalids, the mothers, servants, nurses, etc. 

3. He can recognize it. He can recognize it by 
making mention of it in public prayer, just as he does 
any other activity of the church. He can preach special 
sermons to which the members of the Home Depart- 
ment shall be invited. He can send pastoral letters to 
the members of the Home Department on New Year's 
day and the like. 

4. He can cheer its workers. He can let the 
Visitors see that he values their work. He can tell them 
of the good results that come to his notice, of the good 
words which he hears, of the encouragement which it has 
been to invalids and others, of the value it is to him in 
his labors, of the reclamation of backsliders, etc. 

5. He can identify himself with it. He can 



The Home Department and the Pastor, 93 

meet with the superintendent and visitors of the Home 
Department in their quarterly meetings that he may 
there learn all that they are doing and make further 
suggestions to enlarge their work and make it more 
fruitful. In this conference he will hear many things 
which will be simply invaluable to him, and will be able to 
push the work forward to greater usefulness. Not to make 
use of this effective agency is simply a great blunder. 

It has been said that all the foregoing can be done ; 
they have been done. We are not presenting theories, 
but facts. Many churches as well as Sunday-schools 
have felt the stimulus of the Home Department. Many 
a pastor has discovered that it is an auxiliary which has 
greatly reinforced him and which he now regards as 
indispensable. Let us quote from two or three pastors. 

Rev. C. E. Mogg, d.d., of Ithaca, N. Y., says \—" The 
Department is a means of social and religious visitation. 
It is an age of personal work. In large churches it is 
difficult, if not impossible, for the pastor to come into 
intimate touch with all the members. Additional help 
is needed. The Home Department will create a large 
number of assistant pastors." 

Rev. R. E. Burton, of Syracuse, N. Y., says : — '* We 
believe in it firsts last, and all the time. Were I now to 
make a re-statement of the work and its advantages, it 
would probably be with increased emphasis as to its 
value. I do not think there is a single department of 
church work in which results are more easily, quickly, 
and largely realized. If pastors only knew the advan- 
tages of such a department, they would at once introduce 
it into their churches." 



94 The Home Department. 

In connection with the " Old Brick Church," Roches- 
ter, N. Y., Rev. G. B. F. Hallock has organized a Home 
Department which numbers over two hundred. Every 
effort has been made to develop the Home Department 
and make it efficient. Its members have been made to 
feel the closeness of the tie which binds them to the 
Sunday-school and the church. After thorough trial this 
is the testimony which Mr. Hallock bears concerning 
the Home Department : — 

** We see good results on all sides from the work. For 
one thing we are sure that the Bible is being studied by 
many who would otherwise have neglected it,, and that it 
is studied more than it would have been by. many who 
would have studied some. There is inspiration to study 
in the fact that the lesson for each week is being studied 
by twenty-five millions of others. 

" Our Sunday-school is also increased in number by 
the total of the Home Department membership. We 
count every Home Department member as an actual 
member of the school. Each Visitor's rank is the same 
as that of a teacher in the main school. 

"The Home Department has kindled new interest in 
the Sunday-school. Persons who begin to take the 
lessons get interested in them, and, being invited to the 
main school on special occasions, come, and the result 
has been that not a few have drifted out of the Home 
Department into the main school. There is a constant 
drift in that direction — towards the school, not from it, 
as some feared at first would be the case. I believe that 
for the sake of the Sunday-school itself it will pay any 
church to start a Home Department. 

" Then, too, it has been a great promoter of sociabiUty 



The Home Department and the Pastor. 95 

in the church. It is no small gain to have a band of 
Visitors start out every three months and make a round 
of calls. The Visitors gain acquaintance and influence, 
and the people they call on are more attached to the 
church, and led into closer fellowship with Christ and his 
people. 

^^We have found the Department in our church a 
veritable Pastor's Aid Society. The Visitors bring us 
a great deal of valuable information about the families 
where they go, tell us of cases of sickness, of persons in 
trouble or affliction, or of those seeking Christ. 

*^ Another feature is the cooperation secured between 
the parents and the Sunday-school teachers. Parents 
through the Home Department become interested in the 
Sunday-school lessons, and studying them themselves 
also teach them to their children, and are interested in 
them and their studies, while before they paid no atten- 
tion, but turned the children over entirely to the Sunday- 
school teacher. 

"The Home Department method w^e find practical 
alike for promoting Bible study among all kinds of 
people ; the rich and the poor, and all classes. It is an 
individual matter between each Visitor and the person 
who joins a class. By having a care to the choice of 
Visitors we have found all classes of our people and 
many outside of the church, ready to take up the regu- 
lar, systematic work of studying the International 
Lessons. 

"The day is gone by when the Home Department 
must be apologized for, or prejudice against it be dis- 
armed. By its fruits it is known. So good have been 
its fruits that only good is known of it. So many and 



g6 The Home Department. 

multiplied are the good fruits that it is now widely 
known. I am happy to add the endorsement of a suc- 
cessful experience with it of over four years, and am 
sincere in saying that I think the time not distant when 
no Sunday-school will be considered fully equipped for 
its work unless it has also a Home Department con- 
nected with it." 

Rev. E. N. Packard, d.d., of Syracuse, also writes as 
follows: — '^ There is no limit to the amount of good 
which can be done by the Home Department. I have 
several shut-ins who greatly enjoy their share in the work 
of general Bible study. The Visitor keeps them in touch 
with the whole work of the church, and they delight to 
hand in their contributions and reports. The aged and 
those at a distance can, in this way,' keep in touch 
with the hfe of the school. Another class is helped 
in this way — the servants in families. Their services 
are required at home at the hour when most schools meet, 
and in the Home Class they kept up their interest. 
The commercial travelers also come in for the benefit, 
as they can study the lessons and report by mail. 
We have had members of our church send in reports 
while journeying. 

" The presentation of this work offers a good door to 
general missionary work throughout the community. It 
gives a good errand to the visitor. It certainly brings 
into the main school some of those who begin outside. 
We have seen that here. 

" Possibly the best evidence of my own faith in the 
work is in the fact that I am going to undertake a 
thorough canvass of my congregation, with aid from 
others, and offer this work to every family and individual 



The Home Department and the Pastor, 97 

not now in the school. I expect to increase our numbers 
largely by this means." 

Rev. Willard B. Thorp, pastor of the First Congrega- 
tional Church, Binghamton, N. Y., bears this witness : — 
"I regard it as one of the most valuable parts of the 
church work. I get more new names of people who 
ought to be shepherded by our church, from the ladies 
in charge of the Home Department, than from any other 
source. This in a city church is invaluable. It secures 
incidentally also a large amount of Christian invitations 
to the homes of the people, on the pretext of carrying 
to them the Quarterly." 



V. 

METHODS OF THE HOME DEPARTMENT. 

I. International and National. — The Inter- 
national Home Department Association was tentatively 
organized at Chautauqua in the summer of 1892. Two 
years afterwards at the same place it was formally 
adopted as a part of the International Sunday-school 
Association by vote of its Executive Committee, and the 
tentative organization was made permanent. The object 
of the International Home Department Association is to 
promote the formation of Home Departments all over the 
world. The roster of officers will be found upon an 
earlier page. It prepares and publishes leaflets, pam- 
phlets, normal-class lessons on the Home Department, 
addresses and circulars concerning the work. It may 
appoint State and District Secretaries who shall see that 
the work is presented in all the denominational and 
interdenominational conventions and conferences within 
their limits, that it is prosecuted throughout their field, 
and shall furnish information to all inquirers. This book 
is published at the instance of that organization. For 
normal-class leaflets and information the president should 
be addressed at Room 30, Congregational House, Boston. 
He will especially welcome any interesting experiences 
and the relation of successful new methods. 

Through the sympathy and cooperation of the Inter- 
national Sunday-school Executive Committee, the Home 



Methods of the Home Department, 99 

Department is being discussed and thoroughly made 
known at the various state and district interdenomi- 
national Sunday-school gatherings. It appears as a topic 
upon almost every program. Thus it is receiving wide 
advertisement and powerful endorsement throughout this 
country and Canada. Abroad it is being pushed as 
vigorously as circumstances will permit ; in some cases 
quite rapidly through such organizations as the Sunday- 
school Union of London. 

II. State. — Wherever State Sunday-school organi- 
zations have energetically taken up the work of propa- 
gating the Home Department, its growth has been 
greatly stimulated, to the advantage both of the Sunday- 
schools and of the State Associations. If the State 
Secretary believes in it and has time to attend to it, the 
Home Department can safely be entrusted to him ; if he 
is skeptical or is too much occupied, then a special 
secretary had better be chosen. In New York State, 
where the Home Department has been most widely 
adopted, the State Association has been greatly aided by 
the Woman's Aid Board, which has an efficient General 
Secretary and several District Secretaries. Under the 
working of that organization it is estimated that about ten 
thousand members are added to the Home Department 
each year. The following, as sketched by Dr. Duncan, 
is the method of procedure in introducing it : — 

'^ In one of our districts a Woman's Board Secretary 
has been employed during the whole year. Her plan is 
to spend about a month in each county, giving from one 
to three days to each town and village according to size 
and needs. As far as possible plans are made and 
notices given of her coming at least one or two weeks 



TOO The Home Department. 

in advance and notice made of a union service or 
conference of workers of all denominations. She usually 
finds some one waiting for her, ready to extend hospi- 
talities. She prefers to visit with the workers rather 
than live in a hotel. Her first efforts are to secure an 
active woman to act as secretary of the Woman's Work 
in the town, who becomes responsible for the further 
extent of the work and receives the yearly reports. 
The second day she holds a conference in the afternoon 
or evening, and gives notice in all the churches that all 
who are interested in the Sunday-school work are invited 
to be present and take part in the discussions. She 
finds it wise to first call upon the pastor and superin- 
tendent of the different churches and Sunday-schools ; 
confer with them about the work, enlist their sympathies, 
and obtain suggestions from them as to the best workers 
to call upon, spending the remainder of the time in 
talking with them personally about the opportunities 
offered by this plan. Nearly always she is accompanied 
by some of the lady workers, who aid her in finding the 
people. In aiding her they are helping to interest 
themselves in Home Class work and fitting themselves 
for real field work. In this way the District Secretary 
learns the local needs of all the churches. 

" At the conference in an informal address of fifteen 
minutes she presents the needs of the Home Class work, 
its extent, and gives some illustrations and results, drawn 
from her own personal experience, as well as the expe- 
rience of others, explaining to the people the opportunity 
of service offered, and the small requirements, and indi- 
cating that all who will, can have some part in it. They 
are invited to ask questions on any point on which they 



Methods of the Home Department. loi 

desire information and a free parliament is held in which 
several speak^ thus bringing the matter more fully before 
them and developing different points. 

'^The workers in each village are recommended to 
make a systematic visitation of the entire place; the 
workers from different denominations going two by two, 
thus plainly showing that it is a union work. In this 
canvass the desired statistics are obtained, and all who 
can not or will not attend any Sunday-school are invited 
to join the Home Department of the denomination of 
their choice. All^denominational preferences are placed 
in one list and the names reported to the workers, who 
are expected to get these people either into the Sunday- 
school or some Home Class. 

*^The Sunday-schools should each have a superin- 
tendent of the Home Department who will give the 
necessary time and attention to the work. This super- 
intendent should enlist as many others as the extent of 
the work demands, giving to each one a small permanent 
district, of from twenty to twenty-five families, whom 
they are to visit at least quarterly and deliver lesson 
helps, collect reports, offerings, etc. Where the different 
Sunday-schools are well represented at the first meeting, 
they should at once, if possible, choose their superin- 
tendents and commence the work. 

"The Woman's Board Secretary carries with her Home 
Class addresses, leaflets, membership reports, cards and 
canvass books, for the use of pastors, superintendents, 
and those who desire them, that they may have an 
intelligent idea of the plan, before coming together in 
a conference." 

in. County. — During the sessions of the County 



I02 The Home Department 

Sunday-school Convention a Home Department Secretary 
should be appointed, with reference to introducing this 
agency into every Sunday-school within its territory. Such 
a person should be selected to carry it out as will be of 
himself a guaranty of success. Some one who has had 
experience with the Home Department, or who has 
strong faith in it, must consider it to be his mission to 
inaugurate this county work. 

IV. The Town. — I. The Secretary. If there 
is a Township Sunday-school organization, it will be 
sufficient to appoint a Home Department Secretary, who 
shall act under the direction of the Executive Committee. 
The County Sunday-school Association should address 
itself to securing such a secretary in each township, thus 
providing for a canvass in every portion of its field. 
If there is no township Sunday-school organization, 
then one should be formed, or the churches can all be 
invited to join in a Home Department canvass, under 
the direction of a secretary, to be chosen by them at their 
first union meeting. The essential thing is the selection 
of a pushing, enthusiastic, and persistent secretary. The 
success of the canvass will largely depend upon that 
officer. We go once more to New York and to the 
Woman's Aid Board for a clear presentation of the duties 
of such a secretary, who, of course, as sketched by that 
organization, is a woman, but who may be a man ! Her 
or his duties are stated to be : — 

First. — To bring the methods and benefits of Home 
Department work before the various Sunday-schools of the 
township, and, if possible, secure the adoption of the plan 
and the election of a superintendent of the work in each. 

Second, — With the executive committee of the Town 



Methods of the Home Department, 103 

Sunday-school Association to arrange for a yearly canvass of 
the entire township, appointing and instructing Visitors 
from the various Sunday-schools, assigning them to definite 
districts, and providing them with the Visitor's outfits 
prepared by the State Association, that they may visit every 
family, preserving certain statistics as indicated in the can- 
vass book, inviting all non-attendants to attend the Sunday- 
school of their choice, and all who decline this invitation to 
join the Home Department of that school. 

Third. — When the canvass is completed to receive the 
canvass books containing the Visitor's records and the 
membership cards with the names of those who are willing 
to become members of the Home Department affixed ; to 
tabulate these records and give to each pastor a list of all 
families who express a preference for his church, to each 
superintendent a list of new scholars promised to attend his 
school, and to the superintendent of the Home Department 
of each school a list *of persons who are willing to join 
its Home Department. 

Fourth, — To conduct at the end of each quarter a con- 
ference which should be attended by all who take part in 
the canvass or in Home Department work in the Sunday- 
schools of the town, the object of this meeting being to 
receive reports from the visitors and superintendents of 
departments, to see that all persons who are induced to join 
the Home Department are properly visited and cared for by 
the school for which they signify choice, and by mutual 
counsel and discussion to aid in the improvement and 
development of the work. 

Fifth, — To report plans made and results accomplished 
at each regular convention of the Town Sunday-school 
Association, and annually or more frequently, when re- 
quested, to the secretary of woman's work of the County 
Sunday-school Association. 

2. The canvass. When the town canvass is made, 



I04 The Home Department 

whether by the Town Association or by a single church 
or school, a systematic visitation of the whole field is 
recommended. This canvass, under the Town Associa- 
tion, should be made by Visitors appointed by the 
churches of the different denominations in the town at 
a meeting called for that purpose. The pastor and 
superintendent of each church should come prepared to 
present the names of Visitors from their school. These 
Visitors should go two by two, calling upon every family, 
obtaining the desired statistics, and inviting all non- 
attendants to come to the church and Sunday-school of 
their choice, and, in case any can not or will not do the 
latter, then to join the Home Department connected 
with that school. When the visitation is completed, the 
denominational preference of each family should be 
reported to the church of its choice, and to each super- 
intendent should be given a list of new members prom- 
ised for his Sunday-school or pledged to join his Home 
Department. This should be done even when a single 
school only is engaged in the canvass. From the results 
each school must organize its own Home Department. 

V. The Sunday-school. — Even if a Sunday- 
school begins with others in the canvass of its parish, it 
must in the end take care of its own field. The united 
work may be continued for its value in conference and 
for fellowship, but each school must rely upon itself for 
the care of those belonging to it. The following hints 
may be found serviceable : — 

I. The canvass. The advisability of having a map 
has already been suggested. Almost every county has a 
published township map which can be copied by tracing. 
If none can be obtained, then make one as nearly 



Methods of the Home Department, 105 

accurate as possible, correcting its mistakes from time 
to time until a perfect working map has been obtained. 
Then a working sketch of her district should be given 
to each visitor that she may clearly understand the 
bounds of her territory, and thus omit visiting no portion 
of it, or, by mistake, going over into the territory of 
another. 

In one case recently reported — that of a large mission 
school — each teacher was pledged to visit the families 
represented in his class, carrying with him the Home 
Department requisites and lesson Quarterlies. The dis- 
trict covered by the school was gone over quite easily in 
this way in a few weeks after starting, and quite a large 
Home Department was organized. The visiting was 
good for the teachers, inasmuch as it brought them into 
the homes of their scholars and made them acquainted 
with their parents and their surroundings. As a tempo- 
rary expedient this was not a bad one, but it is plain that 
the canvass omitted caUing at every house, and thus there 
was no concerted effort toward the evangelization of the 
whole parish. Again, the Home Class members need 
more especial attention than can be given to them by 
teachers whose energies and thoughts are already taken 
up by classes of their own. Teachers should have too 
much to do to assume the duties of Visitors, and Visitors 
certainly will be too much employed to be able to do 
more than to care for their Home Classes. 

2. The records. Each Visitor should have a Home 
Class book in which she should make record of each 
fact connected with her class and her visitation which is 
of sufficient importance to note. She should not rely 
upon her memory, but put down each item which should 



io6 The Home Department 

be called to the attention of the pastor, or of the super- 
intendent, or of the Home Department superintendent, 
or of any teacher in the Sunday-school, as well as those 
matters which concern Home Class study and offerings. 
In time her book should present a history of what has 
been done by her in her little parish. 

3. The library. A great deal of use can be made of 
the library. It can be made the effective means for 
circulating good reading in some families where only 
trashy literature is known. By a little care and attention 
the Visitors can make the library very valuable to the 
Home Class members. They can keep track of the 
latest and the most interesting books ; can study the cir- 
cumstances of each member, and so be able to recom- 
mend something peculiarly appropriate. The shut-ins 
especially will appreciate good books. The Visitors, 
therefore, should carry the library list, and suggest 
especially choice or appropriate books, and see that the 
members get them, and that they are returned when 
read. In some Home Departments a '' Messenger 
Service '* has been formed from the school or the Young 
People^s Society of Christian Endeavor, of boys who take 
pleasure in delivering and returning the books. They 
are properly commissioned by a certificate and wear a 
neat little badge. The Sunday-school library, through 
the Home Department, may go outside upon a mission 
of comfort, instruction, and evangelization. 

One church in Connecticut has made an appropriation 
of fifty dollars to furnish good religious papers for cir- 
culation among the members of the Home Department, 
and the Visitors say that much good is being accom- 
plished by them. In another case a large box with a slit 



Methods of the Home Department 107 

in the top has been placed in the vestibule, in which the 
members of the church and congregation as they go into 
church are invited to place their religious papers which 
they have read and are willing to pass on. These are 
taken out by the Home Department Visitors and dis- 
tributed in those families where good reading is not 
otherwise provided. This is an economical and efficient 
way of multiplying the influence of those papers. Good 
reading will inevitably correct the taste for that which is 
pernicious. 

4. Classes. Many schools have a special class in the 
main school to which the visiting Home Class students 
are invited. It is understood that this is their class, in 
order that they may feel the more at home in it. Other 
superintendents prefer to distribute them in different 
classes, corresponding to their age and attainments. In 
the Methodist Episcopal Sunday-school of Bethel, Conn., 
the superintendent of the Home Department, who is a 
lady, teaches a class made up of her Visitors. The Vis- 
itors find it very profitable to study the lesson with the 
needs of the Home Department in mind, and this weekly 
coming together affords them an opportunity to talk 
over their work and get new wisdom and inspiration 
for it. 

5. Socials. To stimulate the class spirit and to win 
the members more effectually Home Class socials are 
held by some Visitors either at their own homes or at 
the homes of some of their members. At these, besides 
such pleasant recreations as will suggest themselves, 
quarterly or monthly reviews or conversations about the 
lessons are a feature. Class picnics and little trips to 
memorable or delightful places are also planned. 



io8 The Home Department 

Then there may be Home Department socials, in 
which all the Home Classes shall join, and at which 
there shall be competitive examinations, addresses by 
the pastor and others, songs, recitations, and refresh- 
ments. 

6. Recognition days. In some churches once each 
quarter there is a Home Department Recognition Day, 
when all the members of that department are especially 
invited to be present at a service held in the church, and 
where the principal seats in the body of the house are 
assigned to the Home Class members. Other pastors 
content themselves with having only one or two such 
days during the year, preaching at the time sermons 
appropriate to the occasion. 

7. Membership roll. With all that is being done in 
the Home Department, some superintendents print 
quarterly and annually a list of the names of those 
belonging to the Home Department with their addresses 
and send it not only to each member of the department, 
but also to each member of the church and congrega- 
tion. It prepares the way for its further introduction. 

This chapter may well close with an account of the 
Home Department as it is carried on in Northfield, in 
Mr. Moody's home church. It will be seen that it 
speaks of some methods and combinations which have 
not been referred to, and which will be likely to suggest 
others. The fact is, that it is not necessary to folio .v out 
all the methods which have been presented, and it may 
be wise in some cases to substitute new ones. The 
thing to do in each case is to make the best use of the 
means at hand. 

The Home Department work of the Northfield Sunday- 



Methods of the Home Department, 109 

school is organized in ten classes under the care of 
a superintendent, who has as associates nine class Visi- 
tors. It numbers about 170. It extends over a region 
eight miles long by six broad. It assists and is assisted 
by some auxiliaries which in any similar field might 
probably be usefully employed and even enlarged. 

The members are not only encouraged to draw books 
from the library of the home school, but in the remoter 
classes a small special library is put in circulation. 
These libraries are so made up that after a time they 
can be interchanged. Each is in charge of a librarian 
belonging in the district in which the library circulates. 
The books are brought to the notice of the people, and, 
passing from family to family, are sure to be read by 
many persons who would not be attracted to books by 
the list of a catalogue, and who would not think of 
reading them unless brought under their eyes. 

Associated with the young peoples' societies somewhat, 
but more particularly with the Ladies' Missionary So- 
ciety, are several missionary reading circles, which are 
also in some respects auxiliary to the Home Department. 
Several of these include mostly members of the Home 
Classes. The missionary libraries are mainly distinct 
from the libraries above mentioned, which are not 
limited to missionary books, although including some of 
that character. Each reading circle has a leader who 
keeps an eye on the circulation of the books. The 
circles vary in numbers from half a dozen to twenty-five, 
and each has a library corresponding to its membership, 
so that every member, or nearly so, can, have a book at 
the same time. Books can be retained from two weeks 
to a month, according to the size. When the book is 



no The Home Department, 

read it is passed to the next name on the list, the names 
of all the readers being pasted on the covpr or written in 
the book. The last reader on the list passes it to the 
leader of the circle. When all the books in a circle 
have passed all the readers, they can be exchanged with 
those belonging to some other circle. The circles enroll 
about eighty persons, and the bond of membership is 
the agreement on the part of each to read at least four 
of the books in a year. But it is found that usually each 
member reads all the books which come to hand. 

The Ladies' Missionary Society, when it has a meeting 
of some special interest or on occasion of its anniversary, 
has found the Home Department a field open to its 
influence. Every lady member of the Home Depart- 
ment has been invited to the anniversary, and many have 
responded and have been brought thereby into closer 
touch with the whole work of the church. The mission- 
ary reading circles have done much to prepare these 
scattered families to respond to such an invitation from 
the Missionary Society. 

When the last quarter came around the pastor brought 
the superintendent of the Home Department, the presi- 
dent of the Ladies* Missionary Society, and the secretary 
of the reading circles into conference. The secretary of 
the reading circles took from the superintendent of the 
Home Department a list of all the names on the roll, 
regarding them as a field which the circles should cheer- 
fully cultivate, and planning to make the definite effort to 
have every family enlisted in the Home Department 
enrolled also among the missionary readers. The leader 
of each work agreed to try to enlarge her lists outside 
the present members, and to notify each the other of 



Methods of the Home Department. 1 1 1 

any accessions, so that they might be sought by the other 
organization also. And each agreed to communicate 
all names to the president of the Missionary Society, so 
that they might be remembered when any invitation 
should be extended from that society. 

A further auxiliary to the work of the Department is 
found in a circle of King's Daughters and a chapter of the 
Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip. These two groups 
each engage to do respectively for young men and young 
women some definite Christian service every week. A 
part of their endeavor is to enlist members in the Home 
Department. The leaders of these two groups of young 
people are expected to have in hand a list of all the young 
men and young women in town who should be sought 
out by them, and to see that each member of the circle 
has some work allotted, if they do not find it themselves. 
In some instances a member will be asked to get some 
into the Home Department and to have an interest in 
them when they may have become enrolled. 

One forenoon the pastor visited a district with the 
leader of the circle of King's Daughters and introduced 
her to a number of young women for whom the circle 
might have a care. A list of eighteen persons was brought 
back, to whom the leader had been introduced and for 
whom she could plan work according to their circum- 
stances. Some of them might be added to the circle. 
Several could be enrolled in the Home Department. The 
same work will be done in other districts of the town. 

It is to be hoped that by all these interlacing and 
mutually supplementary agencies all souls within the 
bcope and responsibility of the church may be cared for 
and won to Christ. 



VI. 

HOME DEPARTMENT REQUISITES. 

The requisites for the Home Department are few and 
inexpensive. That fact is one which commends it. No 
great outlay is needed to start and to carry it on. It is 
difficult to see how the same amount of effective evangel- 
istic effort in any other form could be made so cheaply. 
Of course the devices may be multiplied, and so the 
cost increased, but, as planned, the expense is but slight, 
the main outgo being in the lesson helps, and they, in 
most cases, are paid for by the Home Class members. 

The following forms have been lately devised by the 
writer to fit the present needs of the work as it has been 
developed, as shown in the preceding pages. These 
forms have been adopted by the International Home 
Department Association, and stand for the conception 
which its originator and the Executive Committee now 
have of the best methods of prosecuting the work. In 
so far as they radically differ from those hitherto in use, 
or suggest new ideas, doubtless they will be followed by 
the different denominational publishing houses and State 
Sunday-school associations, if not verbatim et literatim^ 
yet in a general way. So far, the publishing houses 
making use of the Home Department have copied only 
those forms which hardly could be changed without 
detriment. Each one has preferred, and wisely, to get 
up its own explanatory circular and some of the other 



Home Department Requisites, 113 

appliances. In all probability this method will still be 
pursued, and those wishing Home Department requisites 
are respectfully referred to their own denominational 
publishing house. The forms here given are copyrighted 
by the Congregational Sunday-School and PubHshing 
Society, for the reasons already given. If any religious 
body desires to make use of them, application should be 
made for the privilege. 

In attempting to start a Home Department, the first 
thing necessary is a circular which clearly explains its 
purpose and plan, that it may be distributed among 
those who are to adopt it and carry it on. The more 
intelligent the apprehension of what it is designed to 
accomplish the greater will be the momentum with 
which all will move in it. The following is the circular 
prepared : — 

Form A. 
HOME DEPARTMENT OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 

--^- The Home Department is that department of the 

. . Sunday-school in which is enrolled those persons who 

for various reasons do not attend the sessions of the 

Sunday-school, but who are willing to study the lessons at home 

at least a half hour each week. 

While there are some whose reasons for not joining in the study 
of the Bible in the Sunday-school are trivial, there are many who 
would like to do so, but are shut out from its privileges by force of 
circimistances. There are, for instance, the aged, the infirm, 
invalids, those who have the care of young children or of the sick, 
those who live at too great a distance from the church, isolated 
families and communities where there is neither preaching service 
nor Sunday-school. Again, there are those whose business takes 
them away from home most of the time, so that they cannot regu- 
larly go to any Sunday-school, such as commercial travelers, rail- 
road conductors, brakemen and other railway employes, postal 



114 ^^^ Home Department 

route clerks, druggist clerks, night watchmen, civil engineers on 

duty, boatmen, etc. Still further, there are those whose stay in a 

place is merely temporary, whose local attachments are weak, such 

as students in colleges and academies, clerks in stores and offices, 

boarders, etc. Such, if they cannot be induced to attend the 

Sabbath-school itself, may perhaps be induced to join the Home 

Department. 

.jj. . . In starting a Home Department the first thing to 

- do is to canvass the field. To that end the terri- 
organized. . ,. . , , , ,. . . 

tory IS districted, and each district is assigned to 

a Visitor whose duty it is to visit every family, not known to be 
already connected with some church or Sunday-school, and solicit 
every individual either to join the main school or the Home 
Department. Incidentally the Visitor also cordially invites each 
non-attendant to the services of the church. By this canvass 
should be ascertained : I. Who do not attend church or Sunday- 
school. 2. Who will attend both or either. 3. Who will join the 
Home Department. A Visitor should not be asked to look after 
more than fifteen to twenty-five families. The corps of Visitors 
act under the direction of the Home Department superintendent, 
to whom they should make their reports. 

^ . -, V . -r . The Home Department is simply a depart- 

Its relationship , c ,i. o ^ t. i 1 • . 

^ ^- -. ^ ment or the Sunday-school, as close m its 

to the school. ^. .u c t * a- . 

connection, as the Senior, Intermediate, or 

Primary Departments, Its superintendent should be chosen in the 
same way as are the heads of the other departments, and should 
act under the direction of the superintendent of the Sunday-school 
and the executive committee. Its Visitors should be ranked along 
with the teachers in the other departments. Its members should 
be counted in with the rest of the school, and their study of the 
lesson should be regarded as the equivalent of personal attendance 
upon the school. Being upon a par with the other scholars, the 
members of the Home Department should be entitled to the use 
of the library and to participation in all the Sunday-school socials, 
picnics, entertainments, lectures, etc. The Department makes 
quarterly and annual reports to the main school, and similar 
reports of the whole school should be made to its members. 



Home Department Requisites, 115 

The Home Department, like any other department, is 
made up of classes. These classes are known as 
Home Classes. Home Classes take on several forms. 
They may be : — 

1. Individual Classes. In these the members study inde- 
pendently of each other. They may live in the same neighbor- 
hood or be widely scattered. In these it is possible to unite in 
study those who are traveling with those who stay at home, those 
who remove to distant places with those who remain in the Home 
School, those who are sick and infirm with those who are well and 
strong. Classes of this order may be of indefinite number, accord- 
ing to the ability of the visitor to take care of and see to its wants. 

2. Family Classes. It will now and then happen that a family 
is unable to attend the church or Sunday-school by reason of dis- 
tance, want of suitable clothing, sickness, or other reason, who wdll 
be glad to pursue the study of the Sunday-school lesson together. 
Such a Home Class should be in every home, whether its members 
are in the Sunday-school or not. 

3. Neighborhood Classes. In some localities some will pre- 
fer to meet in the home of one of their number for the purpose of 
studying and talking over the lesson together, under the leadership 
of one whom they may select. Thousands of such Neighborhood 
Classes are in operation in country neighborhoods which are too 
remote from church and school to permit of attendance upon them. 

4. Correspondence Classes. The name suggests their charac- 
ter. With the consent of the Home Department superintendent, 
any one desiring to start such a class may do so and be its conduc- 
tor. Correspondence may be opened up with lumber and mining 
camps, isolated individuals, families and communities. Lesson 
helps, report-collection envelopes, etc., of course can be sent by 
mail, and the reports and off"erings be returned in the same way. 

A Home Class frequently is constituted of two or more of these 
forms. Thus it may be partly individual, and partly family, and 
partly neighborhood, etc. That is regarded as a Home Class which 
is under the care of a Visitor. 

. To carry on the Home Department there are 

_^. ., needed as many Visitors as there are districts to 

be canvassed and looked after. Usually ladies 



ii6 The Home Department 

are selected to act, inasmuch as generally they can command the 
requisite time and have more tact. Many church members who have . 
no gift for teaching in the Sunday-school can do this vs^ork well. 
In some cases the Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor 
have furnished a band of zealous young people for this purpose. It 
is the duty of the Visitors, first, to canvass the whole field, and 
then, after the Home Classes have been organized from that can- 
vass, to visit the Home Class members regularly, at the end of 
each quarter, to carry new lesson helps, report-collection envelopes, 
etc., and to receive the reports and the offerings for the quarter. 
They should go as much oftener as occasion may require. They 
should report to the pastor the coming in of new families, cases of 
sickness, affliction, poverty, and distress of any kind, the desire on 
the part of any for religious conversation. Thus they are a Pastor's 
Aid Society. The Visitors hold quarterly conferences under the 
Home Department superintendent. 

T-f r #7^ -p "^ simple pledge that one will study the Sunday- 
^ ^, . school lesson a half hour each week constitutes 
-^' that person a member of the Home Depart- 
ment. The pledge may be written or oral only. Upon its being 
given, the Visitor enrolls the name in her Home Class and supplies 
the new member with a lesson Quarterly, report-collection envelope, 
or envelope and report card. Whether the necessary requisites 
shall be furnished by the school free of expense, or whether they 
shall be charged for, must be left mainly to the good judgment of 
the Visitor. Sometimes a certificate of membership is given. This 
identifies the holder's right to tickets to socials, eutertainments, etc. 
If one is unprepared upon the first visit to make the pledge, the 
leaflet entitled " The Home Department Plan" (F'orm B) should 
be left, with a Quarterly, that it may be further considered. 

^ It will help to give the Department an esprit 

- /, .. de corps, if occasionally there should be a 

done font. „ r^ . . w .u f 

Home Department social lor the purpose oi 

making the members mutually acquainted. The pastor, superin- 
tendent, teachers, and Visitors should be present at this social, 
together with such other Christian workers in the church as it may 
be advisable to invite, with a view to bringing the members into 
more cordial relations with the church and school. There should 



Home Department Requisites, 117 

be a Home Department Day in the Sunday-school, now and then, 

on which all the members of the Home Classes shall be invited to 

be present. Review Sunday would be an appropriate day for this. 

They should be remembered also upon such special occasions as 

Easter, Children's Day, Christmas, etc. Some pastors annually or 

oftener preach a sermon to the Home Department. Such a sermon 

advertises the Home Department, and so prepares the way for its 

extension, as well as benefits its present members. 

-,- , ^, ^ ^- The Home Department is no longer an 

The beneMs of the . . / . t.v. 1. ^ 

experiment. Its practicability has been 

^ ' thoroughly demonstrated. It has been 

adopted by all of the leading denominations and is being pushed 
vigorously by them. It has been endorsed by the International and 
World's Sunday-school Conventions and by many State and Provin- 
cial associations. Its benefits may be thus summarized : — 

1. It increases attendance upon the main school. In almost 
every instance the Home Department becom.es a feeder to the 
main school. 

2. It furnishes an effective method for evangelizing the field 
covered by a church. A corps of visitors regularly canvassing its 
territory is a great reinforcement to the church. 

3. It comforts and helps invalids. Said one who had been "shut 
in " for ten years : " It seems good to feel that I belong with Chris- 
tians and am doing something in common with them." 

4. It recovers backsliders. The effect of home study of the 
Bible is to bring them back again into the church. 

5. It develops family religion. The members of a family 
cannot study the Bible together without being brought face to face 
with those questions which relate to their soul's salvation. 

6. It increases church attendance. Interest in Bible study is 
always followed by an interest in the services of the church. 

7. It develops Christian workers. Nothing is better adapted to 
make Christians effective laborers for Christ than to appoint them 
as visitors in the Home Department. The churches need this 
agency for its splendid discipline. It furnishes something specific 
for the memxbers of a church to do, which is within their power, 
and which will be productive of great results. 

Wherever it has been thoroughly tried, the Home Department 



ii8 The Home Department 

has been found to be a great evangelistic agency. It is calculated 

to reach those individuals and families who are vv^ithout the gospel 

in a gospel land, and for whom the church is responsible. The 

plan is simple, inexpensive, and effective. By all means adopt it. 

-rr T% -f Each denomination prepares its own requi- 

^ „ . . , sites, and they may be obtained by a^dress- 

tnent Requisites, . ,. c j i, i c *. - u 

^ ing the Sunday-school Secretary in each 

case. In cases where neither the school nor the Home Department 
members are able to provide that which is needed, application for 
aid in purchasing the material may be made by the Sunday-schools 
to the Sunday-school Secretary of the denomination to which they 
belong. The Home Department material is classified as follows : — 

I. THE OUTFIT. 

The Home Department of the Sunday-school (Form 

A — as above), per hundred, ^i.oo. 
The Home Department Plan (Form B), per hun- 
dred, 50 cents. 
Pledge Card (Form C), per hundred, 50 cents. 
Report-collection Envelope (Form E), per hundred, 

40 cents. Or Report Card (Form D), per hundred, 

50 cents. 
Membership Certificate (Form F), per hundred, 50 cents. 
Home Department Messenger's Certificate (Form G), 

per hundred, 50 cents. 
Visitor's Home Class Book (Form H), per dozen, 50 cents. 
Visitor's Quarterly Report Blank (Form I), per 

hundred, Ji.oo. 
Home Department Superintendent's Record Book 

(Form K). 

II. THE LESSON HELPS. Each school should order its 

own denominational lesson helps, supplying the Home 
Class members according to their grades, as in the main 
school. Some will be advanced enough to require the 
helps usually given to teachers. 
The above-named supplies, if not obtainable from one's own pub- 
lishing house, can be ordered of the Congregational Sunday-School 
and Publishing Society, either at Boston or Chicago. 



Home Department Requisites. 119 

Note. — If planning for a Home Department of about fifty, with five Visitors, 
the first order should be for a Home Department Superintendent's Record Book, 
5 Visitor's Books; 50 The Home Department of the Sunday-school (Form A), 
for distribution to workers; 100 Home Department Plan (Form B), for distribu- 
tion in the canvass; 50 Report-Collection Envelopes (Form E), or a like number 
of Report Cards (Form D), and separate envelopes; 50 Pledge Cards (Form C) ; 
and other blanks as may be decided upon. The lesson helps can be ordered 
after it is ascertained what kind and number are needed. 

In many cases the visitor will find that the person 
solicited is not ready to give assent. Most people, in 
fact, prefer to think a matter over before making any 
pledge concerning it. In the majority of instances 
it will be better to suggest that the subject can be further 
considered, and then leave with the individual an ex- 
planatory leaflet, a Quarterly, and the report card. In 
some cases this will be absolutely necessary, as when a 
wife would like to induce a husband to join her in making 
the promise, etc. The leaflet to be left under such cir- 
cumstances reads as follows : — 

Form B. 
THE HOME DEPARTMENT PLAN. 

The Home Department is that department of the Sunday- 

,, . school in which is enrolled those who are not regular 
It IS. 

attendants upon the Sunday-schcol itself. Any one can 

become a member of it l^y simply agreeing to spend a half hour 

each week in studying the current Sunday-school lesson. We trust 

that you will permit your name to be enrolled in this department. 

Of course you are absolved from keeping it by reason of sickness 

or other unavoidable cause, but you will see how little time is 

required to keep the promise. Further, the promise is for no 

definite period, and can be withdrawn at any time by simply giving 

notice to the Visitor or to the Home Department superintendent. 

It is hoped, however, that your interest in the department will be 

such that you will not wish to sever your connection with it, or, 

if so, that it will be only to join the main school. 



I20 The Home Department 

n^h /I f #^ "^^ becoming a member of the Home 

^ Department you come into connection with 

our Sunday-school. We cordially welcome 
you as one with us. We assure you of our fellowship and of our 
wish to be of service to you. You will have the advantage of the 
excellent lesson helps taken by the school, and can study with us 
in your own home the lessons which we take up in the school. 
You are entitled to the free use of our library, of which we hope 
that you will avail yourself. You will be invited to all our Sunday- 
school socials, picnics, entertainments, etc. You are urged to come 
into the main school as often as you can find it convenient, and 
when there, will be placed in a class or can remain as a visitor at 
your choice. 
^^ Consider the fact that the International Sunday-school 

Lessons present a course of study of which you can 
"^* thus avail yourself. They are arranged upon a plan, and 
to study the Bible with a plan is far better than private, desultory 
reading or study. Millions of people are engaged in following out 
the scheme pursued by them. You have seen the result in the 
increase of interest in the Word of God. Examine the Quarterly 
carefully, noting its map, its treatment of the lessons and all of 
its aids, and see how much help you can get from it in studying 
the lessons. It is a full and inexpensive commentary. Will you 
not avail yourself of it and of the wide fellowship of study into 
which it will bring you ? 

Should you become a member of the Home Depart- 

, ment, an envelope will be left with you in which you 

^' can place such offerings as you choose to make for the 

objects to which the school contributes. This offering is in no sense 

obligatory, and you can make it as much or little as' you like. It is 

left with you that you may share in all the privileges of the school. 

^^^ You will keep your own record of the study of the 

lesson each Sunday upon the envelope or the report 

^ * card, as indicated. At the end of the quarter, the 

visitor will call for the report and furnish you a new blank, together 

with the lesson helps for the next quarter. From all the reports 

thus gathered up, the Home Department will make up its quarterly 

report to the main school, and this report will be transmitted to 



Home Department Requisites, 121 

you, or the visitor will inform you of the progress of the Home 
Department and of the main school. 

We trust that this plan, so simple and presenting such advan- 
tages will so commend itself to you that you will unhesitatingly 
permit your name to be enrolled as a member of our Home 
Department. Faithfully yours, 

Home Department Superintendent. 

The pledge card, known as the membership card, 
may be used or not according to the judgment of the 
Visitor. There are people who will refuse to join at all 
if they are required to pledge themselves in writing to do 
anything. The moment that they are asked to sign a card, 
the undertaking assumes such magnitude and solemnity 
that they will not enter into it. On the other hand, 
there are a large number who will unhesitatingly sign, 
and w^ho will feel themselves more bound than if they 
had given only an oral pledge. The mission of the 
Visitor is accomplished when a binding promise is 
secured, whether it be written or oral. Experience has 
shown that it is not best to do away with the pledge card 
altogether. The form adopted, good for four signatures, 
is the following : — 



MEMBERSHIP CARD. 



" Search tfje Scriptnres ; fot (n t^em ge tljink ge fjabe eternal life." 

I agree to join the HOME DEPARTMENT of the „ ^ ., . 

Sunday>school, and to spend at least half an hour each Sunday, or during the 
week, in the study of the lesson for that day, unless prevented by sickness or other 
good cause. I wiU continue my membership until I notify the Superintendent of 
virithdrawal. 



* let tfje tDOrt of Cljiist litoell in gou tidjlg." 



122 



The Home Department 



When the pledge has been secured, the visitor should 
deliver to the new Home Class member, with the 
Quarterly, the report-collection envelope, designed, as 
will be seen, both to contain the offerings and to serve 
as a report card. The face of the envelope thus 
appears : — 



lis 






>> 5 g 01 



"The opening of thy words giveth light.** — P». 1x9:130. 

HOMB DEPARTMENT, Home Class No 



..Sunday-school, 



Name, 

Residence, . 



Report for Qu 


arter. 














.to 












189 


LESSON NO. . 


I 


11 


liT 


"iv" 


~v 


"vT 


VIl 


[vm 


"Ix" 


~x~ 


"x7 


Hn 


"xiir 


"xnT 


TOTAL. 


LESSON STUDY AND 
ATTENDANCE. 
































OFFERING 


















1 













In the blank space for it, mark your study of the lesson in the above diagram thus /,and 
your attendance on the main school with an X. Record your offerings vaek by week, and 

ftlace them in the envelope, which will be called for at the close of the quarter, and another 
eft in its place. 

Copyright, 18!M, 6y Congrrgaiional SuTidaif'Sckool and Publishing •foeietg. 



The Report- collection Envelope will serve admir- 
ably for individuals, but where there are several in the 
same family, a report card is better, with a separate 
envelope into which all can put their contributions ; — 





HOME CLASS REPORT CARD. 

to the blank space for the day, nicotd your, study of the lesson by an 
attendance on the main school by an X. 


inclined 


FOBM D. 

mark, thus /. or your 


i 
1 


B£pme department of Sunday Scfioot. 


1 


Class No. 


MONTH OF 


MONTH OF 


MONTH OF 


H 


NAMES OP MEMBERS. 


. 


a 


3 


4 


5 


I 


a 


3 


4 


S 


. 


« 


3 


4 


5 






































1 

r 
1 








































































































1 


Missionary Offerings 












1 


1 

















Unless called for, this Card, when filled, should be returned to ..^^. 

- .....or...-. -. .-«, Street, when another Card will be KOt y9U» 



Home Department Requisites. 123 

In some Home Departments it has been deemed 
advisable to issue a membership certificate to each one 
joining the Home Department. Some appear really to 
prize this documentary proof of their connection with 
the Sunday-school, but it has, besides, its practical value 
in identifying the members of the Home Department as 
rightfuUv entitled to tickets at socials, lectures, concerts, 
picnics, etc. A good form for such a certificate is here 
given : — 



• . * JtEt^ntbersbip (I^crtificate . . 



.Sunday-schooL 



Having agreed to study the Sunday-school lesson at least a- half-hour each week. 

CftWf CerttfteiBJ that ^ . , J^ enr 

a member of our 



porQc 0ep0pin)C^! 



And is entitled to all the privileges of our Sunday-school. 



Home 'Department Superintendent. 

As has been noted, a messenger service has been 
established in connection with some Home Departments 
to relieve the Visitor of the necessity of delivering 
library books and other heavy matter. In this service 
both boys and girls have been enlisted. A neat card 
certificate has been given to them that they might have 
it to show both to the librarian and to the members of 
the Home Classes in collecting the books. The certifi- 
cate, which of course must be taken up whenever there 
is any misuse of it, is thus worded : — 



124 The Home Department. 

**C|^q| are t^e ouMragcr* ef t^t c^sn^ei/* 

^"^Ht^OME^DEPARTMENT 



.Sunday 'SchooL 



^l^ije^ C^ttifi^ltf /^o? — *<»5 hem appoinUd 

Home Pepartroeot /Messenger, 



Home 'Department Superintendent 
*• S^c $ittg'f basnuBB xxvpa^ duU.*' 



The Visitor's book should designate the number of 
her Home Class, have a space in it for the descrip- 
tion of her territory, and contain instructions and sug- 
gestions. The first part of the book should contain a 
"Record of Visitation,' ' in which is put down the date 
of each visit, the names of those visited, with their 
street and number, a minute of facts for the pastor, 
another column for the superintendent, and still another 
for other pastors, superintendents and teachers. The 
next portion of the book should be devoted to the tran- 
scription of the quarterly reports of the Home Class 
members, as gathered from the report-collection envel- 
opes or Home Class report cards. The last part of 
the book should be given to the quarterly reports, show- 
ing the number of the class at the beginning of the 
quarter, the number added, the number transferred to 
main school, or lost by death, discontinuance, removal, 
or by dropping out. 

The blank for the Visitor's Quarterly Report, good for 
twenty names, is as follows : — 



Home Department Requisites. 



125 

Form I. 



Home Department 

OF 

Sunday-School. 



Home Class No, 

VISITOR'S QUARTERLY REPORT. 



Quarter ending 


tSo 






- ^1' cV//!-** 




Names of 
Members. 


ADDRESSES. 


NO. OF 
LESSONS. 


OFFER- 
INGS. 


DATE OF 
VISIT. 


REMARKS. 















Number of class at beginning of quarter 

Number added during quarter 

Number transferred to main school 

Number lost by death .... discontinuance .... removal .... 

Net gain or loss 

Signed, 



Visitor, 

Lastly, the Home Department superintendent should 
have a record book, containing a plat of the field 
covered by the Home Department, divided into districts 
corresponding with the number of Home Classes. One 
section of it should contain the names of the Visitors 
with a description of the territory to which each is 
assigned. Another should be devoted to the member- 
ship of the Home Classes, with the name and address of 
each member, date of joining, and blank for adding the 



126 The Home Department 

date of discontinuance, with its cause. A third portion 
should be given to the quarterly reports of the Home 
Classes, and a fourth to the quarterly reports of the 
Home Department to the school. Such a book is 
issued under Form K. 

The prices of these various requisites have been given 
at the conclusion of the first one mentioned (Form A) on 
page 1 18. A treasurer's book is so simple an affair that it 
has not been deemed best to publish one. AH the 
necessary account keeping, as a rule, should be done by 
the treasurer of the school. 



VII. 

DIFFICULTIES OF THE HOME DEPARTMENT. 

Before attempting the work the fact should be recog- 
nized that the Home Department has its difficuhies. It 
cannot be started as easily as a loose stone on a moun- 
tain side, which needs only a slight push of the foot in 
order to go bounding down the slope. After it is started 
it is not self-perpetuating and automatic in its operations, 
but needs persistent and careful attention. No great 
results in any undertaking are to be expected without 
due effort. That they be not soon turned out of the 
way, those who engage in the work of establishing a 
Home Department should understand that it involves 
labor, self-sacrifice, discouragements, disappointments. 
They should not enter upon the task without resolving to 
continue in spite of them. The determination to succeed 
in defiance of all difficulties is a guaranty of success. 
Taking up the work in an experimental way will surely 
result in failure if too many discouragements are met 
with at the outset. 

It is well before beginning to have some conception of 

the obstacles to be overcome. Those obstacles are not 

always the same in different places. In one locality it 

may be easy to inaugurate it, and in another it may be 

an up-hill undertaking. Inasmuch as one place is not 

the duplicate of any other, it is quite possible that one 

may have to encounter peculiar impediments which 

127 



128 The Home Department, 

others have not had to remove. Still human nature in 
various places is so much the same that certain hin- 
drances may be looked for. If the full list be not real- 
ized, there will be so much to be thankful for ; if it be 
exceeded, there will be need for just so much more faith 
and effort. The common difficulties may be classified 
as follows : — 

I. In starting. — It usually is harder to get anything 
started than it is to keep it going after it has been suc- 
cessfully inaugurated. From such a beginning it gains a 
momentum which will carry it on through many subse- 
quent depressing experiences. But it must prove itself 
to be of value before it will win sufficient loyalty in times 
of discouragement. Therefore the necessity of begin- 
ning with resolution and strength. In starting there are 
difficulties with respect to : — 

I. Adoption. The great trouble is to get it thor- 
oughly and enthusiastically adopted. If the school 
moves strongly in the matter, there is every reason to 
hope for success. If it takes it up doubtfully and half- 
heartedly, whether anything is accomplished will depend 
upon the fortunate results of its first efforts. The things 
which militate against its adoption are : — 

( I ) Disinclination for new work. There is always a 
fueling against entering upon new work. The Sunday- 
school itself at the beginning had to struggle against it ; 
the Christian Endeavor Society had to meet it; the 
Young Men's Christian Association had to overcome it. 
In these days, especially, with the multiplication of 
societies within the church and the Sunday-school, there 
is a good deal of reluctance to undertake any new organ- 
ization ; and there is considerable justification for it. 



Difficulties of the Home Department, 129 

The objection is likely to be raised that already there is 
more machinery than the church can run. The missionary 
societies for old and young, the temperance bands, the 
brigades, the guilds, the clubs — what opportunity is there 
for anything more ? Where are the workers to be ob- 
tained for additional work ? If the Home Department will 
not be a positive help in the work of the church, then it 
should not be adopted ; if it be a peculiarly effective 
means, then it should be undertaken no matter what else 
the church may be doing. Machinery that will help 
should be made to help ; the useless machinery should 
be dispensed with. In the case of each new proposition 
which is brought before the church the question should 
be. Is this work which we ought to do? If it is, then 
let the adoption be hearty. There is less danger of 
doing too much work than of doing too little. An over- 
worked church is a rare sight. 

But the disinclination will be more pronounced in 
those churches which have few societies than in those that 
have many. Those who are doing but little hate to 
pledge themselves to do more. In some churches two 
objections always bar the way to attempting anything out 
of the usual. The first is, '' We never tried that ; " and 
the second is, '^ We once tried that and failed." There 
are too many who are satisfied with simply coming to 
hear the minister once or twice on Sundays, and attend- 
ing the midweek prayer-meeting. The world will never 
be won for Christ in that way. Many a church has run 
out altogether because it did not have energy enough to 
recruit from the world. The Home Department is to 
help the church to add to its ranks from the parish in 
which it is situated. 



130 The Home Department 

(2) Incredulity respecting the work proposed. The 
plan of the Home Department is so simple that it is no 
wonder that to many it seems incapable of accomplishing 
all that is represented. " I-don't-believe-it-can-do-so- 
much" has killed many a proposed undertaking. The 
Saviour himself was unable to do many mighty works in 
Nazareth because of the unbelief of the people there. 
They could have sent to Capernaum and found out 
whether Jesus was the mighty miracle worker or not that 
he was said to be, but they did nothing of the kind, but 
simply said, '* Is not this the carpenter's son?" If any 
of this unbelief is met with, let a committee be appointed 
to examine into the Home Department and report. Do 
not let the undertaking be strangled through ignorant 
unbelief when knowledge is so easily gained. 

(3) The difficulty of securing a good superintendent. 
In some cases that is a serious obstacle. Better delay a 
little than choose some one just to fill the place. The 
one who is to take charge of the Home Department 
should be a person of some executive ability and who is 
willing to devote to it considerable time. Such a one 
may not be found offhand. When found he (or she) 
may not be ready at first to take the position. Let the 
matter be thoroughly considered. Let the pastor and the 
superintendent of the Sunday-school talk it over with 
the one selected. In nine cases out of ten the position 
will finally be taken. But if a refusal be given, why try 
another ! Some one can be secured by due effort — 
perhaps the very one most adapted for the work but 
apparently the least likely to enter upon it. 

(4) The difficulty of securing good helpers. That 
hindrance is one of the first to occur to those wishing to 



Difficulties of the Home Department, 131 

establish a Home Department. The effective workers 
are already deeply engaged. They are at work in the 
Sunday-school, in the Christian Endeavor Society, etc. 
In most instances they should not be asked to take on 
new work. It is a commendatory feature of the Home 
Department that it seeks to develop new workers. Look 
among the members of the church for those who are not 
actively engaged. Do not be discouraged if a full list of 
workers cannot be obtained at once. Let the Home 
Department superintendent begin with two or three Visit- 
ors, nay with one — or even with none. All the Visitors 
required will be found in time, if one is only persistent. It 
is a good plan to take a friend around on the tour of 
visitation without disclosing the fact that she is wanted 
to act as Visitor. One or two rounds will show to her how 
easy and how delightful is the task. She will then be 
ready to take it up without urging. Be patient; some 
things have to grow ; be satisfied if even this grows but 
slowly. 

Many will object to entering upon the duties of a 
Visitor because they have had no training in Christian 
work. Unquestionably they would be better Visitors if 
they had been so trained, but it does not follow that they 
have no qualifications on account of this lack, or that 
they should not begin. This may be the Lord's call to 
service, and that they have no right to disregard. With 
each new round of visits they will become better ac- 
quainted with their duties and better able to discharge 
them. Probably many will think that they should carry 
around a limp-covered Bible, and be able to fit an appro- 
priate text to every circumstance. Let this idea be 
gotten rid of as quickly as possible. The Visitor should 



132 The Hojne Department. 

not go into any home with the air of a spiritual mentor. 
Lay entirely aside any missionary manner, for people do 
not like to feel that they are regarded from the mis- 
sionary standpoint. Go into other homes as you would 
like any one to come into your own. Make each call a 
friendly one, using good sense as to making advances, 
not talking in stilted pious phrases, but in good neigh- 
borly fashion. Let a Visitor be sincere, hearty, natural, 
and she will be welcome. If she be observant and 
tactful, it will be only a short time before she will become 
a trained Christian worker. 

Suppose that after the proposition has been considered, 
the school should reject it ; what then ? The Home 
Department plan even then need not be given up. The 
one who has been urging it, and who believes in it, 
should establish a Home Class. Make a success of it, 
adopting all the expedients to develop an interest in its 
members elsewhere suggested. Quietly invite some of 
the church workers to a Home Class social, or get 
now one and now another to go with you on your 
rounds. Suggest to this one and to that that they repeat 
your experiment. In just this way Home Departments 
have been established, the school at last being glad to 
adopt that which at first was thought to be a chimerical 
undertaking. 

2. Canvassing. A Home Department is not started 
by a vote merely ; a membership has to be secured for 
it ; and here come in a second class of difficulties : — 

(i) Disinclination to study the Scriptures. That is 
at the bottom of many a refusal to join the Home De- 
partment. There is an aversion to any kind of study 
with some, and this in the case of the Bible is very pro- 



Difficulties of the Home Department 133 

nounced. Miss Van Valkenburgh, of Plattsburg, N. Y., 
has enumerated some of the excuses for not joining the 
Home Department which she received from business 
men. Their insincerity is manifest. One man said that 
he could not join because he had to take care of the 
baby while his wife attended the Sunday-school, and he 
had no time to study. Another would not because his 
wife went to the Sunday-school, and that was religion 
enough for the family. One declared that he did n't 
know whether there was any other world, and was per- 
fecdy willing to run the risk. Another was doing two 
pious things already — he never signed notes as security, 
and never joined any secret societies ; he did not feel 
that he could do any more. One man was in too much 
trouble financially. Many *^ had no time " ; others were 
**too tired"; some were afraid that if they made the 
promise they would n't keep it. One was n't a heathen ; 
he read the Bible when he wanted to. Another was trying 
faithfully to keep the temperance pledge ; he could not 
possibly undertake anything more. Translated, these 
puerile excuses in each case meant " I do not want to 
study the Bible." Visitors will hear just such evasions 
in almost every community. If the Visitor accepts them 
as final, her Home Class will be relatively small. Miss 
Van Valkenburgh did not accept them at all, but on the 
first call did not press the matter of joining. She simply 
explained the plan and advantages of the Home Depart- 
ment, left the Quarterly and other matter — and called 
again. In most of the cases she succeeded in obtaining 
the Home Class pledge. Many Visitors make the mis- 
take of trying to accomplish too much upon the first 
visit. They are ready to give up if they do not get an 



134 The Home Department 

assent then. The first visit should be usually only pre- 
paratory — a visit of information. 

(2) Hostility to the church. This obstacle is com- 
paratively rare, but still it is liable to be encountered. 
There is so much talk against the church by orators who 
assume to speak for the laboring classes, that it would be 
strange if some were not infected by it. They have 
become venomized with the idea that the church is only 
for the rich. Occasionally it will be found that some are 
cherishing fancied grievances. They went to church, 
and no attention was paid to them ; the pastor has never 
called upon them ; none of the church people have ever 
manifested any interest in them. Both patience and 
tact are required in dealing with such cases. See to it 
that the pastor is informed of their complaint ; get some 
of the church people to call, etc. Meantime the Visitor 
herself should visit them sufficiently often to be looked 
upon as a friend ; and when that happens the rest is 
comparatively easy. 

(3) Inability to study. More people than one would 
suppose know nothing about study. It seems an easy 
thing to one who has had the requisite schooling to sit 
down and master the lesson in a Quarterly. To many, 
however, it is a prodigious undertaking. They do not 
know how to go about it. They will refuse to pledge 
themselves to do it unless the method of study is made 
very simple to them. Hence the importance of the 
Visitors being thoroughly acquainted with the lesson 
helps, so that she can show the plan upon which they 
are prepared and indicate the work which the Home 
Class member should do. Of course here comes in the 
necessity for tact ; for to point that out to some would 



Difficulties of the Home Department, 135 

be an affront, inasmuch as they are perfectly capable of 
discovering all that is needed, while in no case must 
there be an imputation of incapability. Where sug- 
gestions are given it should be with the inference of 
saving time, or of taking up those features which are of 
most importance. Some are ready frankly to admit 
their lack, but most people are sensitive and would rather 
conceal it. They should be saved any humiliation. 

(4) Unwillingness to make a pledge. Not a few shrink 
from binding themselves to anything which looks like a 
permanent obligation. Some will positively refuse to 
sign a printed pledge. It should be borne in mind by 
the Visitor that the manner of getting a thing done is not 
of so much importance as getting it done. If the study 
can be secured without a pledge, it is not necessary to 
insist upon the pledge. There are but few who will 
object to making a promise if it does not commit them 
for too long a time, but if there are any who can be led 
to do the work by not imposing any specific written 
obligation upon them, it is better, of course, to get them 
to do the work without the pledge. The majority of 
persons will work better for having made the promise, 
but it is n't wise to lose any because they are unwilling 
to make a formal agreement to study the lessons con- 
tinuously. " You will let me know beforehand when you 
want to stop, won't you, so that the Quarterly can be 
discontinued?" is a promise which none will hesitate to 
make, and yet in effect it is the same as made by all the 
rest. The Visitor should not be bound to stereotyped 
ways of doing her work. The thing of importance is to 
get the people to studying the Bible — the method is of 
comparatively little consequence. 



136 The Home Department 

II. In Continuing. — All the difficulties are by no 
means overcome when the Home Department is success- 
fully inaugurated. No self-going, perpetual motion ma- 
chine has yet been discovered. It takes more steam to 
set a machine going than to keep it in motion after it is 
started, but it will not continue to run without fresh 
impulse. The way to make a Home Department con- 
tinuously successful is to keep putting fresh effort into it. 
The difficulties in carrying it on after it is inaugurated 
have reference to : — 

I. The workers. From various causes the corps of 
workers will lose some of its numbers. There will be : — 

(i) The 24nadapted, At the first it cannot always be 
told whether one will succeed as a Visitor or not. Inas- 
much as the regular rounds of visitation are far apart, it 
cannot immediately be determined whether one will do 
well or not. Frequently it happens that one who does 
not show much adaptation for the work upon the first two 
or three rounds proves in the end to be admirably quali- 
fied for it. So the Home Department superintendent 
should not be too hasty in deciding against a Visitor, but 
should carefully watch her work, going with her when it 
is possible, that she may give her the benefit of her 
example and counsel. But when it is fully evident that 
the Visitor is unfitted for her work, the best way is to let 
her go as speedily as possible. Better do without a 
Visitor than have a blunderer or one who has no heart in 
her work. 

(2) The discouraged, A Visitor maybe unnecessarily 
discouraged. She may think that she is not succeeding 
because she has not enrolled a large number in her 
district. Try to show her that success is not to be 



Difficulties of the Home Department, 137 

estimated wholly by numbers. Let her be faithful over 
the few, and the Lord will reward her by giving her 
oversight over more. Too many are impatient to have 
a large class without delay. A small class will grow if 
the Visitor is faithful to it, and unremitting and judicious 
in her canvassing. The superintendent should try to 
encourage her. Help her to see the true importance of 
what she is doing. Give her a little aid ; go with her ; 
suggest new expedients ; pray with and comfort her. A 
good worker may be saved to the Home Department. 
A prayer and conference meeting of the Visitors is a 
good antidote to discouragement. 

(3) The tired. When one is tired the best remedy 
is rest. Don't lose a good Visitor because she is tired, 
but see that she has a respite. If she is poor, see that 
she is sent off somewhere where she can have a good 
refreshing vacation. Consult with the pastor about her, 
and let the matter be quietly done so as not to call 
public attention to her as an object of charity. When 
she returns she will enter into the work the more heartily 
for the good which has been shown to her. Only in a 
very few cases will this need to be done, but in them the 
help ought not to fail. As to others, let them under- 
stand that they are released only for a little while. 
Utilize their absence by " breaking in " new workers, 
and so enlarging the corps that more territory may be 
occupied. A new Visitor will succeed better after having 
visited the members of a Home Class already established. 

2. The students. It cannot be expected that a 
Home Class will keep full after it is started. Various 
causes will operate to deplete it. There will be : — 

(i) Discontinuance, Not all who begin will con- 



138 The Home Department 

tinue. In spite of all the efforts of the Visitor there 
will be instances where the study of the lessons will be 
dropped. Though so little is exacted by the pledge, 
even that little there are many who are not willing to 
render. Some will begin enthusiastically enough, but 
will soon tire of the experiment. They will be offset by 
others who will begin with reluctance, but who will 
become more and more interested. The good judgment 
of the Visitor must guide her as to urging those to go on 
who wish to fall out of the line. It is neither wise to 
give them up too readily nor to labor with them too 
much to persevere. If compelled to let them go, let it 
be with the understanding that at some future time they 
may be asked to join again. Something may occur to 
make them place a higher value on Bible study. Visit 
them once in a while in order to keep the connection 
open. 

(2) Joining the school. Many a good Home Class 
has lost almost if not quite all its membership this way. 
The desire to be where the lessons are discussed has 
taken strong hold of those who for a while have been 
studying them alone. If the Visitor looks solely at her 
class record, this is discouraging ; if she considers the 
object of the Home Department, she will rejoice — and 
set to work to get up another class. Her class should 
be but as a vestibule of the Sunday-school — the less 
time its members stay in it the better. Her effort should 
be directed towards keeping up the supply. She should 
consider her labors eminently successful if they result in 
continually adding to the membership of the school. 

(3) Moving away. In many localities, especially in 
the larger cities, famiUes are transient in their stay. 



Difficulties of the Home Department, 139 

They remain so long as profitable employment lasts, and 
then go elsewhere in search of new opportunities. In 
some places, therefore, the Home Department is likely 
to lose as many through removal as from all other causes 
combined, unless the visitors are very watchful. They 
should be on such intimate terms with their Home Class 
members that a family would not think of going away 
without letting them know. Still a household might slip 
away during the three months' interval of visitation, 
owing to some sudden necessity or change of occupation, 
without giving any notice. In such cases the new 
address should be discovered, if possible, and the sug- 
gestion should be made by letter that the Home Class 
relationship can be continued by correspondence, or, if 
a Home Department is connected with the church near 
to which they have gone, they can be commended to its 
care and fellowship. The Visitor should never suffer a 
Home Class student to drop his membership through 
removal, if she can help it. If, in any case, there seems 
to her a Hkelihood of one's going away, let the sugges- 
tion incidentally be dropped that if such a thing should 
happen, the membership still could be kept up. Indeed, 
it is easy to see how the continued interest shown in one 
who has been obliged to go into some new locality would 
affect him more even than constant visitation in the old 
place. A kindly note on sending the Quarterly and the 
new report card, telling the things of interest with 
relation to the Home Class, the Home Department, and 
the school, would come to be prized beyond measure. 
Fidelity in looking after removals yields large returns for 
the Master. 

(4) Death. There is no circle which is not liable to 



140 The Home Department 

be broken into by death. The dearer to each other are 
its members the closer will they draw together on account 
of this rupture. Let the Visitor see that all the other 
members of the Home Class are notified of the death 
and of the time and place of the funeral. If it be 
possible, they should attend and be seated together, thus 
emphasizing their tie toward the dead and toward each 
other. Before them will be a powerful illustration of the 
value of Bible study and of that preparation for eternity, 
which it is meant to instigate. It will hardly be possible 
for the members to come away without feeling that the 
Home Class is of more importance than they had yet 
deemed it to be. There will be quiet resolutions to 
make more of the opportunity for study which it gives ; 
to enter into that Christian life to which it is an invita- 
tion ; to take up the duties which that life enjoins. 
After that will be the Visitor's opportunity to speak a 
word in season. And if, seated by the casket, the Visitor 
knows," as in some cases she will, that to the one who 
occupies it she has opened the door of Hfe, and feels 
sure that that one has gone from the Home Class here 
to the great Teacher above, how grateful she will feel that 
such a privilege has been given her ! 

The attempt has not been made to enumerate all the 
difficulties which may be encountered by those who wish 
to begin a Home Department. It would be useless to 
endeavor to do so, for each one probably would be able 
to give some special difficulty met by him which would 
not be included in the list. They, however, represent 
the principal ones ; to be fortified against them is to be 
fortified against others. Looking them over they do not 



Difficulties of the Home Department, 141 

appear to be very formidable. They surely should not 
prevent the attempt to do the Master's work in this 
portion of his vineyard. It will not be the difficulties 
which will thwart the establishment of a Home Depart- 
ment, but a lack of consecration, resolution, and per- 
sistence. What has been done in so many places can be 
done in any new place, with the same means and the 
same determination to succeed. It is yours to do the 
work; it is God's to give it his blessing. Being co- 
laborers with God, there is no possibility of failure if we 
but do what is our duty. ** Let us not be weary in well- 
doing : for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." 



INDEX. 



Aged, The, 58. 

Barnes, Mrs. J. H., 23, 24, 

Beard, A. F., d.d., ii. 

Beecher, Miss M. A., 19, 26. 

Belsey, Hon. F. F., 41. 

Bible, Home Department provides for 

General study of, 47. 

Systematic study of, 47. 

Associated study of, 48. 
Binghamton, Report from, 23. 
Blake, Hon. S. H., 16. 
Bohemia, Home Class in, 42. 
Brooklyn, Home Departments in, 38. 
Brotherhood, Andrew and Philip, 11 1. 
Butler, Article by Mrs. Allen, Secre- 

taryy 11, 17. 
Burton, Rev. R. E., 93. 

Canvassing; its infrequency, 20. 

By Visitors, 21. 

By Districts, 22. 

Quarterly, 23. 

The Town, 103. 

For the Sunday-school, 104. 
Christian Endeavor, Beginning of, 7. 
Church attendance, 88. 
Circular in 1882, 22. 
Clark, A. M., D.D. , 42. 
Clark, F. E.,d.d.,8, 9. 
Classes, Home. See Home Classes. 
Classes, Neighborhood. See Neigh- 
borhood Classes. 
Classes, special, 107. 
Congregational Sunday-School and 
Publishing Society, 

Adoption of Home Department 
by, 26. 

Copyright permissions, 36, 113. 



Convention, International, 1881, 15. 
» j> 1893,41. 

Convention, World's, 1889, 41. 

1893, 41- 
Crosbie, Rev. W., 42. 

Danforth, Hon. Edward, 26. 
Difficulties of Home Department, 
127-T41. 

In starting, 127-135. 
In continuing, 136-141. 
Dike, S. W., ll.d., Introduction of 
Home Department by, 28. 
Articles by, 39. 
Dummer, J. N., 39. 
Duncan, W. A., Originator of Home 
Class, 9. 

First steps in introducing, 10-18. 
Working of Home Department in 

New York, 34. 
His labors in pushing Home De- 
partment, 39, 40. 
Introduction of Home Depart- 
ment abroad, 41. 

Griswold, Miss Grace E., 39. 

Hall, W. H., 39. 

Hallock, Rev. G. B. F., 39, 94. 

Home, The, 55. 

Home Classes: — 

Choice of name, happy, 14. 

Correspondence Classes, 87. 

Development of, 20. 

Family Classes, 85. 

Final Development, 36. 

First, ^s Neighborhood Classes, 
12, 14. 



143 



144 



Index, 



First steps In introducing, lo. 

Gain through the Home Depart- 
ment, 32. 

Individual Classes, 85. 

Mention of, in Peloubet's Quar- 
terly, 20. 

Neighborhood Classes, 86. 

New phase of, through the Home 
Department, 34. 

Obstacles to growth of, 8. 

Origin of, 7, 9. 

Recognition of, by Main School, 

13, 14- 
Segregation of, 23. 
Sunday-school Extension Society, 
A, 17. 
Home Department, as carried on and 
recommended by Dr. Dike, 28. 
Adoption of, 36. 
Aims to reach individuals, 52. 

1. The Shut-ins, 52. 

2. The Shut-outs, 54. 
Aims to reach the Home, 55. 
Aims to reach the Town, 57. 
And Church Attendance, 88, 89. 
And the Pastor, 88-97. 

As adopted by Dr. Duncan, 34. 
Circular for the Homes, 119-121. 
Difficulties of, '^127-141. 
Explanatory Circular, 113-119. 
How made up, 35. 
International Association. See 
International Home Depart- 
ment Association. 
In summer, 56. 
In winter, 55. 

Its failure as a movement, 33. 
Its improvements upon Home 

Class, 31, 32. 
Messenger Service, 106. 
Methods of, 98-1 11. 
County, loi, 102. 
International and National, 

98, 99. 
State, 99-101. 



Sunday-school, The, 104-iTi. 
Town, 102-104. 
Modification of Home Class, A, 

Organization of, 70-87. 
Outfit for, 118. 
Pastor's Aid Society, A, 95. 
Place in School, 71, 72. 
Privileges of Members of, 71. 
Purpose of, 31, 45-63. 
Reformation of, 35. 
Requisites, 1 12-126. 
Superintendent of, 73-80. 
Visiting, 89, 90. 
Hough, Timothy, 39. 

India, Home Department in, 42. 
International Home Department Asso- 
ciation, organization and purpose, 
43, 98. 

Made a Department of Interna- 
tional Sunday-school work, 43. 
Roster of Officers, 3. 
Invalids, The, 59. 
Isolated, The, 60. 

Jacobs, B. F., 43. 

King's Daughters, 108. 

Lesson Helps, 87. 
Library, The, 106. 

London Sunday-School Union, Adop- 
tion of Home Department by, 41. 

Work in India, 42. 
Membership Card, 121. 
Membership Certificate, 123. 
Membership Roll, 108. 
Messenger's Certificate, 124. 
Messenger Service, 106, 123. 
Metcalf, Rev. R. D., 62. 
Methods, 98-1 11. 

International and National, 98, 99, 

State, 99-101. 

County, loi, 102. 

Town, 102-104. 

Sunday-school, xo4*izx. 



Index. 



MS 



Mogg, C. E., D.D., 93. 
Moody, D. L., 108. 
Mothers, 53, 61. 

Neighborhood Classes, called Home 
Classes, T2, 

Limitations of, 18. 
Newspaper, A Sunday-school, 16. 
New York State, Home Departments 
in, 39. 

Reports of, for 1882, 1883, 19, 23. 
„ „ ,, 1884, 26. 
„ ,, „ 1894, 37. 
Northfield, Mass., Home Department, 
108-111. 

Packard, E. N., d.d., 96. 
Parish, The, 63. 

Pastors, Helped by Home Depart- 
ment, 62, 88-97. 

Helping the Home Department, 
91-93- 

Testimonies of, 93-97. 
Paton, J. B., LL.D., 41. 
Peloubet's Quarterly, 20. 
Phillips, J. L., D.D., 42. 
Pilgrim Teacher, 27, 30. 
" Pomucka," Bohemian Leaflet, 42. 
Porter, Rev. J. S., 42. 

Recognition Days, 108. 
Report-card, 122. 
Report-collection Envelope, 122. 
Reynolds, William, 44. 

Shut-ins, The, 52. 

Shut-outs, The, 54. 

Socials, 107. 

Stockbridge, N. Y., Town of, 38. 

St. John, Rev. E. P., 39. 



Summer, Home Department in, 56. 
Sunday-school Leaflet, No. 6, 13. 
Superintendent of Home Department. 

His appointment, 73. 

His qualifications, 73-76. 

His duties, 76-80. 

Record Book, 125. 
Sutherland, Rev. W. R., 63. 

Thorp, Rev. Willard B., 97. 
Transients, The, 55. 

Vincent, Bishop John H., Endorse- 
ment of Home Classes, in 1881, 
15, 16. 
Advocacy of, in 1885, 49. 
Visiting, A help to Pastors, 89. 
Visitors, Home Class. 

Aid to Church and Sunday- 
school, 91. 
Development of, 24, 25. 
Duties, Their, 81-85. 
Qualifications, Their, 80. 
Quarterly Report of, 124, 125. 
Record Book, 124. 
Records, kept by, 105. 
Transformation of Canvassers 
into, 34. 

Winter, Home Department in, 55. 
Woman's Sunday-school Mission Aid 
Association, Formation of, 10, 11. 
Mention of, in Peloubet's Quar- 
terly, 20. 
Plan for Yearly Canvass by, 18. 
Special feature. Home Class 
Work, 22. 

Zimmerman, Jeremiah, d.d., 15. 



.r7 



